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The Eternity of Matter 



A Series of Discussions Affirming the Eternity of 
Matter as a Primal Postulate 

By 

Lockhart Brooks Farrar, LL. B., M. D. 



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N. E. Stevens & Son, Publishers 
Paxton, Illinois 



44 The secret of life will be discovered some time, how 
to initiate it, and how to continue it." Page 39. 



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Copyright 1910 by C. E. Beach. 



44 On the scheme of necessary eternal matter with all 
possibilities and certainties involved in it, and to be 
evolved from it, and by it, rests our reasonable hope of 
an infinite continuance of life, rather than on a fictitious, 
theistic scheme of human imagination and construction." 



<gCi.A26i?73 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR 

By his Legal Counsellor and Friend, 
C. E. Beach. 

Dr. Farrar was born in Langdon, Cheshire County, 
New Hampshire, August 29, 1822. When about two and 
a half years of age, he, with his widowed mother, went to 
live in Walpole, New Hampshire, where he lived until 
he had sufficient schooling from the early New England 
Academies, to enable him to teach. He attended the 
Academies at Walpole, New Hampshire; Chester, Ver- 
mont; and Hancock, New Hampshire; and graduated 
from the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Medical College in 
1848. He began the practice of medicine in Hollis, N. 
H. ; then practiced in Manchester, Mass., and removed to 
Paxton, Illinois, in 1858. He received the degree of 
Bachelor of Laws from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1871, 
and was admitted to bar but did not follow this profes- 
sion to any extent. He was thrice happily married; but 
neither wife nor child live to be his company in his 
latter years. 

For many years the Doctor struggled with the pro- 
fession of the Christian religion, and was prayerful in 
his search for the real ethics and truths of life. Thus it 
wall be seen that ' ' The Eternity of Matter ' ' is not the re- 
sult of early education and training, but of earnest study 
and personal research in his quest for the truth; and 
since he reached his fortieth year, the supreme, almost 
passionate desire to possess the simple faith, has been 
finally superseded and over-awed by the power of reason 
from the insistence into its processes of the absolute veri- 
ties and axiomaties, despite his wishes to the contrary. 



INTRODUCTORY 

When this work was begun, the Doctor had no object 
in view, either immediate or remote. It was simply his 
written investigation of the questions weighing upon his 
mind. This will account to the critic for the possible lack 
of rigid connection in the various discussions. It is only 
in the later years that he has thought to give to the world 
his ideas, and these discussions are selected from a mass 
of the written thoughts and investigations of the author, 
not with a purpose to destroy fixed and satisfactory 
hopes and ideals of Christian devotees, nor with a 
purpose to vilify or derogate the man Jesus, (possibly one 
of the evolved functions of eternal matter) nor to detract 
any source of comfort derived from a devotee through 
faith in him ; but that the scientists, investigators, chem- 
ists and thinkers of the world, may possibly find some- 
thing in these discussions to stimulate their efforts to find 
the source of life, — to find the life principle, and result- 
antly to preserve it. 

The uncertainty of the Christian religion and its 
basics, (which is the highest plane upon which the Doc- 
tor can place it), was first brought vividly to the Doctor's 
mind in the study of Sir William Hamilton's "Metaphy- 
sics and Logic, ' ' and from seeing in chemistry the exacti- 
tudes of everything in the natural and material world. 
From a series of studies thus begun, the Doctor reached 
the conclusion that the Eternity of Matter is the only 
actually posited truth. 

In my acquaintance with the Doctor, I have found 
him to be as tender-hearted, and as easily convulsed with 
emotion in matters that pertain to the joy or suffering of 
human or animal life, as the veriest child. At 87 years of 
age, with a wonderful verve, and with a mind as clear as 
that of a seer at his prime, he spends his time in thoughts 
and deeds and works for the good of all humanity. His 
humanity is a very strong factor in his general make-up, 
and he is always careful to avoid causing suffering of 
either human or animal kind ; and holds it a crime to de- 



INTRODUCTORY 

stroy life of any sort, needlessly. That it becomes neces- 
sary to destroy some forms of life to afford the sus- 
tenance of his own, is a source of regret to him. This 
may readily be seen by a perusal of Discussion 74 fol- 
lowing. He is frugal in his menage, abstemious in habit, 
and pure in morals, though at all times most ready to 
spread the mantle of charity over the weak and erring. 
In fine, a pure and wholesome life presents to the world 
an analysis of the real philosophy of materialism, and its 
honest convictions in these discussions affirming "THE 
ETERNITY OF MATTER." 



PREFACE. 

The fundamental postulate must itself be self-evi- 
dent, and not an inference from something else. The 
postulate is. Something must exist forever and without 
beginning to exist. We may also reach it as the conclu- 
sion of syllogistic reasoning from self-evident data, viz: 
Nothing can begin to exist without cause for beginning 
to exist. Not anything can be its own cause for beginning 
to exist. There is existence. Therefore there is existence 
that did not begin to exist. A corollary from this reason- 
ing follows; eternal existence necessarily given leaves no 
ground for absolute creation, so none for a creator. Eter- 
nal and uncaused existence must forever persist in quan- 
tity as it now is and has forever existed. And all that be- 
comes must be of it and by it as final source and cause. 

The only thing we know, have sense or definite con- 
ception of, or has scientific or practical and verifiable 
recognition as undermost and quantitatively persistent 
through all changes, takes on all forms and is the one 
ground of all states, inanimate, animate and conscious, 
evolves all properties, qualities and functions, the sub- 
stance that can be neither destroyed nor produced: the 
ground and reason of all that becomes, and the depository 
of what ceases its present form, properties and functions, 
the utmost element of analysis, is called matter. Nature 
or the universe is the sum total of all that is, ever has 
been, or ever will be, an affirmation that cannot be shown 
to be false, for it cannot be shown that the universe has 
limits, or that there is anything within it that is not of it. 
Certainly space and time which are essential parts of it, 



VIII PREFACE 

cannot possibly be claimed as having limits or were cre- 
ated, or that they hold anything that is excluded from the- 
nniverse of nature, or that they hold anything not domi- 
nated by their rules of order. Consequently there is no su- 
pernatural, and nothing chaotic or fortuitous. Matter that 
did not begin and cannot cease to exist is in fixed quanti- 
ty, and it must have some mode of existing that neither 
began nor can cease. It must be either in motion or not 
in motion as mode of existing as universal and fixed in 
quantity as itself. Matter in motion or restraint of mo- 
tion, which can only be partial and local, is force or ener- 
gy, and not less so when restrained. Not until the middle 
of the Nineteenth Century was the fixed quantity of mat- 
ter and force in the universe definitely determined. They 
are now propositions not disputed, under the appella- 
tions, indestructibility of matter and the conservation of 
force or energy. To nothing else do these qualities inhere 
or are they ascribed. They virtually determine matter to 
be the eternal existence which is the primal and necessary 
postulate. The indestructibility of matter legitimates the 
inference of the uncreateableness of matter. Of all reali- 
ties then, matter is the most real, since it has forever been 
without beginning to be, and by consequence must forever 
continue to be. No such attributes can knowingly be 
claimed for thought, consciousness, self, ego or spirit. 
These phenomena appear, are local, individualized r 
numerical and, so far as we know, never were before. 
And after a while they disappear, and so far as it can be 
conclusively shown, never reappear. They are properties 
and functions of living matter. "Realities," says Prof. 
William James, "are things that exist independently of 
the feeling through which their cognition occurs. If the 
content of a feeling occur nowhere in the universe out- 
side of the feeling itself, and perish with the feeling com- 
mon usage refuses to call it a reality, and brands it as a 
subjective of the feeling's constitution." Mind, Vol. X f 
p. 29. For the cognition of a reality that is not an intro- 



PREFACE IX 

spection but is a real objective, the object must transcend 
the subject or self, otherwise it is a mere egoism or 
solipsism; i. e., the ''belief or proposition that the person 
entertaining: it alone exists, and all other persons and 
things exist only as ideas in his mind. ' ' This is the ideal- 
ism of Bishop Berkeley, Kant, Fichte and Schelling. And, 
in some degree and form of its many aspects it is the pre- 
vailing philosophy of Christendom. Idealism is the doc- 
trine that the real is of the nature of thought; that all 
reality is psychical. Berkeley an idealism is that objects 
exist only in the mind, that God, the souls of men ; and 
ideas in the souls, are the only real existences. This view 
relieves the Supreme Being from the impossible task of 
creating the universe of positive concrete matter out of 
nothing, and of giving being and intrinsic orders to 
space and time. Idealism is theistic in Kant also. Kant 
finds God, Freedom and Immortality a priori in the mind, 
which certainly is not biblical. That the thought-world 
and the material space and time world are one and the 
same real world is evident from this ; when we place the 
critically studied thought-world side by side with the 
material space and time world, which is the subject-mat- 
ter of all the positive verifiable sciences, they are found 
to coincide so far as we can go in thought. And we are 
well persuaded that the objective aspect of the world is 
infinitely extended beyond the reach of thought. We do 
not nor can we change the material space and time world 
to match our ideal world when there is a disagreement, 
but we feel that the truth of things has not been reached, 
and we study to bring our ideas up to the measure of 
what is their object-matter. ' ' There is no mode of con- 
sciousness in which the opposition of subject and object 
does not appear. ' ' The indisputable facts that we correct 
our ideal world, by the test of the real objective world ; 
that the objective world is infinitely more extended and 
varied than our thought-world ; and that we have no ideal 
world but that derived from the objective world, are de- 



X PREFACE 

cisive of which is the real eternal, perdurable world, and 
which the local, temporary and shadow- world. Kant 
says : "Besides the logical meaning of the I, we have no 
knowledge of it in itself, which forms the substratum and 
foundation of all our thoughts. ' ' The logical meaning of 
the I or self, is this: We are conscious of thinking and 
feeling, therefore there must be something that thinks 
and feels. This we call the I, or self, or subject, and 
know no more. We have no knowledge of what we call 
1 ' I, myself, ' ' but this logical affirmation of it. It is not to 
be discovered by any observation or introspection. The 
logical need of a subject for the predicate " thinks," etc., 
"cannot teach us the everlasting continuance of the soul 
amid all changes, and even in death; therefore it only 
signifies a substance in idea, and not in reality." Kant's 
Critique of Pure Reason, Max Midler's trans., Vol. II, p. 
305. 

There never was a greater mistake made or more 
radical in psychology and scientific philosophy, than 
Kant 's, when he denies that our knowledge must conform 
to the objects of it, and declares that objects must con- 
form to our modes of cognition, which is to settle some- 
thing about objects before they are given to us through 
the senses. Ibid, Vol. I, p. 370. If this be true, how can 
we be sure that we know anything about them after they 
are given? He held that there were, before any experi- 
ence, forms set in the mind as constitutive of it, — the 
categories to which forms all objects, to be known must 
conform. Hutchison Stirling, Mind, Vols. IX and X, has 
made Kant's Categories look like a moth-eaten garment 
despoiled of its beauty and usefulness. The human sub- 
ject or self is cognizable only as a logical subject, and not 
as an objective substantive entity, because it has no veri- 
fiable real sense-existence in itself, but only as the in- 
ferred property and function of living matter. To take 
the logical subject as a real substantive entity is a para- 
logism or sophism. That is, "it is false reasoning, the 



PREFACE XI 

conclusion does not follow from the premises, especially 
with reference to the substantiality, simplicity and per- 
sonal identity of the soul." Kant. If the subject of a 
proposition is only logical, we have no ground to ascribe 
any definite character to it ; it is merely formal. For in- 
stance : the presuppositions of space and time must be 
granted when any facts of existence or events are alleged. 
The properties of space and time are known, and their 
presupposition becomes necessary and self-evident. They 
are not merely logical. Life, sentience and intellection 
are functions of a complicated material aggregate or or- 
ganism, to whose constituent parts neither these nor any 
one of them in any degree belongs. But they are locally 
evolved from this complex combination in a certain 
medium. There is a formative tendency universal in mat- 
ter. Morphogeny, or the genesis of forms which means 
internal construction as well as external shape, holds 
within itself the secret of evolution in the inanimate and 
animate worlds. Nor is there a greater mystery. As mat- 
ter never began to exist or to move as mode of existing, 
so it never began to evolve differences; like the presup- 
positions of space and time, presumptions that logically 
and of necessity must be granted before experience, even 
creation and creator, and concrete existence. In existence 
that never began to exist, there must be all the reasons 
for all that begins, the universal formative tendency 
serves to reveal one underived, sempiturnal system and 
source. Singleness can achieve nothing. Combination of 
differences are factors in all effects. But how forms can 
father such a progeny of properties and functions, has 
not been seriously studied. How the union of the two 
invisible and intangible gases should take on the form 
of visible and tangible water with entirely new proper- 
ties and functions and lose them utterly and return to 
gases and their properties and functions, on the disso- 
lution of the union, is every whit as great a mystery and 
as seriously warrants the postulation of the separate en- 



XII PREFACE 

tity of aquosity to come into the oxide of hydrogen 
which itself has and exercises the functions and proper- 
ties of water, as the much more complex make-up, the 
human organism warrants the postulate of an immaterial 
separable entity, a soul or spirit, which is itself sentient, 
conscious, and volitional. To find all things and our- 
selves in and of the material space and time universe 
from which we can neither escape nor transcend in 
thought, or experience, how muchsoever we may indulge 
in words assertive of it, is to follow the scientific con- 
sciousness and its methods of establishing the truth of 
things. There is only one self -interrelated whole of 
things, of infinite complexity, multiplicity and differ- 
ence, without the opposing discontinuity of created and 
creator. We have no distinctive perception of the thing 
that thinks and feels, only the thinking and feeling. 
Therefore we cannot affirm the I, or soul, to be anything 
other than the sensitivity of living matter in all grades, 
from mere initial awareness which belongs as essential 
property to living matter and does not belong to not liv- 
ing matter ; increases from bare awareness to discrimina- 
tive consciousness of slight difference, on to intellectual 
inference and apodeictic clearness and certainty. It 
cannot be shown that all this discernment is not the func- 
tion of living matter, as nothing else has been discovered 
that can feel and think, and we need have no expectation 
that anything else ever will be discovered. It is as evi- 
dent that living matter feels and thinks as it is that 
which is operative in muscular action. Life and the 
greatest of human mental achievements discovers no 
entity but common matter. There is universal objectivity 
except locally, here and there, groups of molecules have 
taken on forms of life in one of the three or four great 
departments of animate nature. John Fiske has written : 
' ' The moment the first trace of conscious intelligence is 
introduced we have a set of phenomena which the ma- 
terialist can in no wise account for." This challenge 



PREFACE XIII 

need not be accepted. For John Fiske could not solve 
his own problem. But it may be replied that the ques- 
tion concerns the new scientific method of accounting for 
phenomena by evolution, in which Prof. Fiske was an 
advanced student, and has written "Outlines of Cosmic 
Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of Evolution." It 
might have been supposed that, if a philosophy of the 
Cosmos can be based on the doctrine of evolution, that 
the origin of sensitivity and consciousness might be 
based there too. The great principle that initiates the 
properties and functions throughout the fields of chem- 
istry and much of physics, may be suggested by the ma- 
terialist as equally efficient to introduce into the world of 
experience sensitivity and intelligence. We may posit 
awareness where matter initiates the formation of a cell, 
perhaps earlier, while protoplasm is chemically forming, 
on the sea bottom or elsewhere. Life invades material 
structure without waiting, when it is the property of its 
interrelations and of the environment. The chemical 
structure of protoplasm on which all life's processes in 
the four great divisions of animate nature, its conscious- 
ness and its volitional achievements depend, is very 
complex. Substantially one chemical union of atomic 
differences suffices to be dowered with aptitude to all 
grades of life manifest on the earth. "Both the cyto- 
plasm and the karyoplasm of a microscopic cell, are 
not simple chemical compounds, but mixtures of many 
complex substances. It has been shown in the foregoing 
chapter that all parts of the cell arise as local differenti- 
ations of a general protoplasmic basis." The Cell in De- 
velopment and Inheritance, p. 330. 

Ourselves and all living things are a congeries of 
cells. They propose and solve our problems for us, get 
us into prison and out again, devise our philosophy and 
our religion, present to our vision the physical world, 
to our intellectual contemplation the ideal world and 
persuade us to the goodness of the moral world. Kant 



XIV PREFACE 

had no notion of the multiplicity of pieces into which 
we are individually divisible. He says: "The soul, or 
the thinking I, is not the concurrence of several acting 
things. It is impossible that a thought should be inher- 
ent in something composite. Thought therefore is possi- 
ble only in a substance which is not an aggregate of 
many parts of the absolute simple." Kant's dictum 
that the unmixed unity of substance in which thought 
inheres and manifests itself, is as completely outgrown 
by extension of knowledge, as the old Hebrew method of 
battering down the walls of a city, (Jericho) has been 
outgrown by increase of knowledge. We are built up 
of innumerable pieces of living matter agreeing to asso- 
ciate together to make feeling and thinking and deed- 
effective man. Feeling and thinking are the property 
and function of the most complex material structure 
known. Of all processes and products, to feel and think 
are of the highest order. It is an amazing truth that all 
grades of life involve but one common principle, and 
that expressed in its lowest conceivable terms in some 
degree of awareness as the universal essence of all living 
things. And substantially there is but one chemical 
union of atomic differences as its common seat and 
source of manifestation. And research has established 
one external form for all terrestrial life. And we have 
now more than ever reason to believe that all cells may 
be brought into definite relation to a common morpho- 
logical and physiological type. A cell is defined as a 
mass of protoplasm containing a nucleus, and both nu- 
cleus and protoplasm arise through division of the 
corresponding elements of a pre-existing cell. Living 
protoplasm has the power of self-action. Functionally 
the nucleus is the most important part of the cell, though 
it may not be more than a 100,000th part of the cell, and 
that microscopic. The nucleus carries on the inheritable 
traits of form and character. There are chemically con- 
trasted substances that make up the nucleus and the 



PREFACE XV 

body of the cell. They are called respectively, karyo- 
plasm and cytoplasm ; the former is rich in phosphorous. 
''Inheritance must be looked upon as merely a form of 
growth. ' ' Darwin. "It is certain that the germ is not a 
body in which life is dormant or potential, but that it 
is simply a detached portion of the substance of a pre- 
existing living body." Huxley. *As far as man can trace 
himself regressively, he finds that he is initiated into 
living being in the bodies of his immediate parents, 
metamorphosed into the human form and nature out of 
their common vegetative and animal food by gradual 
differentiation of parts and growth by intussusception. 
"Every discussion of inheritance and development must 
take as its point of departure the fact that the millions 
of tissue cells of the body of the plant or animal are all 
derived from the cleavage or segmentation of one fer- 
tilized egg or cell, first into two halves, then each of 
these into two, and so on." Fertilization is accomplish- 
ed by the entrance into the egg of a single spermotozoon 
and no more. This gives to the germ-cell its embryogen- 
ic-building capacity, after the similitude of the parental 
pattern, including mental traits, by cleavage and growth 
through intussusceptive deposit of living matter which 
dying by interstitial decay from fatigue of living action, 
is removed by catabolic or dissimilative change, while 
other dead matter is being vitalized and assimilated by 
reverse or anabolic preparation to take its place and do 
its service. Not until 1841 was it determined that the 
spermatozoa were formed in the glands of the testes. And 
not until 1875, did Oscar Hertwig establish the all-im- 
portant fact that the fertilization of the egg was accom- 
plished by the entrance into it by one spermatozoon and 
no more. The ultimate problem of sex, fertilization, in- 
heritance and development, are cell problems." The Cell 
in Development and Inheritance, p. 9. 

So man tracing himself regressively, finds that he 
is initiated into living being in the bodies of his immedi- 



XVI PREFACE 

ate parents; metamorphosed into the parental form and 
given parental foods which had not immediately before 
assumed the human form or the human mental traits, 
all assumed through the initiative capacity conferred 
upon the female cell by fertilization, resulting in grad- 
ual differentiation of parts into the typical parental 
species and growth by intussusception. "Every dis- 
cussion of inheritance and development must take for 
departure a great quality-difference between the fertil- 
ized mother-cell and the non-fertilized mother-cell. The 
former, under proper conditions, immediately begins to 
divide into two halves, end each of these halves into two 
more, and so on. That it can in a few days or weeks 
give rise to a mollusk or a man, is the greatest marvel of 
biological science. In attempting to analyze the prob- 
lems it involves, we must hold fast to the views on which 
Huxley insists, that the w r onderful formative energy of 
the germ is not impressed upon it from without, but is 
inherent in the egg as a heritage of the parental life, of 
w^hich it was originally a part. ' ' 

Perhaps a cell has been as much studied by means of 
the microscope as any other small thing ; and possibly it 
has as much hidden away in it as any other little object. 
At least, it is the first trace of any individual obtainable. 
But to critically examine nature's work thus at the be- 
ginning, to see her method of procedure is certainly to 
spoil her work. Many different parts make up the cell. 
Cells have sex distinction. Not in form, but in property 
and function. Cells are of tw r o classes : Somatic, that 
make up the general bulk of the body, and the germ- 
cells. The germ from which every living being arises is 
derived from the division of a parent cell of the preced- 
ing generation. In sexual propagation, each parent con- 
tributes one cell of its body to the formation and endow- 
ment of its offspring. These two cells coalesce and be- 
come one physiologically and embryologically. There is 
no architect that shapes the cell but the matter of the 



PREFACE XVII 

cell itself and the environment. Nor does there need 
be. Matter that has the natural property of chemically 
uniting, does so of itself when near enough to feel the 
influence of attraction, if the different atomic elements 
that make up protoplasm, the one compound alone of 
matter by virtue of the combination, take on the proper- 
ties of life in all grades of life and intelligence in its 
four earthly kingdoms of the living — the Protista, the 
Vegetative, the Animal and the Human. There is only 
one living combination or substance known — protoplasm, 
only one living form known — the cell; it seems quite 
amazing as long as man has witnessed living matter itself 
taking form and growing by interstitial deposit of new 
living matter and interstitial decay and removal of dead 
matter. In all these historic milleniums, man has never 
observed an architect in shrub, animal or man different 
from the living shrub, animal or man, nor has he out- 
grown the fetichism of positing an architect to place the 
particles of matter in every growing vegetative, animal 
and human being. But matter is worthy of more confi- 
dence, because it is our dependence however much we 
may depreciate it. The foremost people of the world 
have been talking against it for 1900 years. But there 
is nothing deeper, more persistent in existence, nothing 
else exists or has existed but matter. Nothing else lives, 
or can live so far as we know. It is all that is objectively 
or subjectively beautiful. Behold the flower. It has the 
properties of ministering to us love, and intelligence. It 
is our father, mother, child, wife, husband, friend. It is 
ourself. It serves our uses and our pleasures. It is 
our wealth and our means. We are because matter is. 
We live because matter lives. Let any one seriously con- 
sider all these points, and ask himself if he knows that 
he is as dependent on any one of the Gods, or on all the 
Gods, as he knows himself dependent on matter? Let 
him pass honestly in review the question of what he cer- 
tainly knows about any God and of what means he has 



XVIII PREFACE 

of their acquaintance, and of what means he has of 
knowing about the matter. Let him trace himself from 
his conception to his death, and these two points well 
mark off the entrance upon and termination of his earth- 
ly career, and say if he has certainly learned about mat- 
ter. Living- matter is evidently its own architect. It 
builds itself into form. Matter is a much greater po- 
tency than most people give it credit for. A philosophy 
or a religion that makes thought or idea or a mental pic- 
ture, a persistent real, and matter its shadow or deriva- 
tive from it or a created product, is taking much from 
the efficiency of matter and bestowing it upon a name, 
and raises faith to the rank of creative cause. Faith can 
ground nothing well, that is not well grounded without 
it. Ever so much belief in what is false can never make 
it true, nor turn a bare idea into a concrete real. And 
Paul's definition of faith as it stands in the eleventh 
chapter of Hebrews, gives it this meaning : ' ' Faith is the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen. ' ' And Jesus is reported as having given sever- 
al illustrative examples of the same meaning. Here is 
one : ' ' What things so ever ye desire when ye pray, be- 
lieve ye receive them and ye shall have them" which 
justifies Berkeleyan and Kantian idealism. And if one 
can actually possess himself of a thing by believing hard 
/enough that lie has it when he has not, it ought to work 
Eddy ism in reverse order, by dispossessing one of what 
one actually has, by disbelieving one has it. Such notions 
eliminate all regulative principle from the domain of 
nature and deliver the mind over to Gods and confus- 
ion. But how remote is this from the scientific conscious- 
ness and universal experience. 

Jesus, and Paul, and Mrs. Eddy, have evidently not 
enunciated the principles which underlay the operative 
facts of the world. The 1000 acre corn fields out west 
are not produced by prayer, but have to be patiently and 
laboriously planted and cultivated, or a crop is not real- 



PREFACE XIX 

izecl. If Mrs. Eddy has perceptibly increased human 
longevity by her persuasion of people that they are 
neither sick nor in pain, then if they don't die, what 
an advantage she must be to insurance companies. The 
book that she so much reveres, says : It is appointed unto 
man once to die. And it can hardly be denied that the 
ordinary way of death is by a longer or shorter period of 
sickness. 



CONTENTS 



Discussion 1 — Pages 1 to 2 

Existence did not begin, nor can cease, but is eternal — 
Includes all substance — Space and Time are self-evident 
verities, independent of the intelligence that affirms their 
eternal necessity of being. 

Discussion 2 — Pages 2 to 3 

Beginning not a postulate — Eternal existence — Intelli- 
gence nature's deliverance of itself to itself — Energy of a 
system (Maxwell). 

Discussion 3 — Pages 3 to 5 

Mechanics extend throughout — Kantian theory as to 
space and time denied — Material universe a dynamic, math- 
ematical system, therefore intelligible — Organic and inor- 
ganic chemistry are inseparably united (Haeckel). 

Discussion 4 — Pages 5 to 6 

Nature must furnish the consciousness of itself, hence 
empirics and axiomatics from given data — Space and time 
not merely psychological — Kantian idealism would be to 
phantomize all sense objects. 

Discussion 5 — Pages 6 to 7 

All energies or forces are motions of matter and in 
their numerous forms are but varieties, of the eternal mode 
of existing and functioning of matter. 

Discussion 6 — Pages 7 to 9 

Corpuscles discussed relatively. 

Discussion 7 — Pages 9 to 11 

Corpuscles probably the naked material whose inrinite 
numbers are the eternal quantitative matter of the universe 

— Basic undermost all alike — Whatever becomes is involved 
in its nature — Light waves. 

Discussion 8 — Pages 11 to 13 

The moneron — the man — Life — reason (Clifford) Or- 
ganic disintegrates into inorganic from which chemistry had 
raised it — no supernatural — Matter the solution of the rid- 
dle. 



XXII CONTENTS 

Discussion 9 — Pages 13 to 15 

Organic and inorganic chemistry differ in complexity 
and environment — Life — Awareness — Protoplasm — The am- 
oeba. 

Discussion 10 — Pages 15 to 19 

Mind the product of physics and chemistry, which are 
the results of the mechanics of one matter in definite posi- 
tional relations and motions — Life is a state of matter, and 
the living body a mechanical laboratory wherein the living 
structure prepares its successors — Hylozoism denied, Haeck- 
el wrong — Supernatural unintelligibility — All things are 
natural. 

Discussion 11 — Pages 19 to 21 

Creation and transcendentalism denied — Mechanics of 
matter causal of all becomings and ceasings — Man the most 
materially complex, the highest and most variedly phenom- 
enal of all known objects. 

Discussion 12 — Pages 21 to 26 

Our physics determine our ethics, our psychics, our the- 
ism, and our place in nature — Kant, Descartes and think- 
ing truth discussed. 

Discussion 13 — Pages 26 to 31 

The universe is systematic relationship of differences — 
The primal postulate — The mystery of the two gases — The 
exalted life taken to satisfy the life of micro-organisms of 
deadly diseases, a charge against the character of the cre- 
ator — Man must help himself — Life a functional property 
of eternal uncaused existence, and creation proved unreal. 

Discussion 14 — Pages 31 to 38 

Sir William Crookes and G. H. Lewes quoted — Life is 
living matter; a state and chemical meohanico structure of 
metabolic moving parts — Polytheism as true as monotheism 
— Religious dogma discussed — Quotations from discussions 
of biblical writers and advocates. 

Discussion 15 — Pages 38 to 42 

Our hope is from the fact of the eternal permanency of 
matter, i. e., an existence, for a personality, an eternal per- 
sonal entity after death, not through divine grace or a crea- 
tion from nothing — Suggestion of higher development of 
vitalized matter by its relations for indefinite continuance 
and progress — The secret of life will be discovered some 
time, how to initiate it and how to continue it — Man cannot 
be praised for progress in knowledge of nature; he has al- 
lowed the wild to lead him, always expecting somebody com- 
ing out of the bushes to tell him something — Gods and 






CONTENTS XXIII 

their messages discussed and the fictions of the scriptures — 
Notions of the devotee sacred, whether fetichistic, polytheis- 
tic or monotheistic. 

Discussion 16 — Pages 42 to 43 

Discussions of religious writers upon science and evo- 
lution — The amrmer that matter is uncaused and uncrpated 
and eternal is not necessarily a derelict socially or morally. 

Discussion 17 — Pages 43 to 47 

Fetichism the first step in all religions — The Ante- 
Nicene Fathers — Religion defined — Cicero on religion and 
superstition quoted — More biblical writers quoted, and the 
encyclopaedias quoted upon the selecting, authenticating 
and arranging, correcting and establishing of the Bible. 

Discussion 18 — Pages 47 to 50 

Hebrew text in shorthand — Its vocalization necessary 
for understanding — The Jews — The blunders of the trans- 
cribers. 

Discussion 19 — Pages 50 to 57 

The philosophic view of religions — Clerk Maxwell dis- 
cussed — We are tethered to the identity of our ancestors — 
Volition versus spontaneity. 

Discussion 20 — Pages 57 to 62 

Choice is a complex, so is mind, so is man — Mind is the 
localized consciousness and offspring of universal intelligi- 
bility — Creation again proved untenable. 

Discussion 21 — Pages 62 to 71 

Kant, intuition and a priori discussed — Gates and the 
dogs — Chemical combination and consciousness relational, 
Isomerism and allotropism support the proposition. 

Discussion 22 — Pages 71 to 79 

Chemical affinities — The resultant property of their 
union — Deus in machina discussed — The philosophy of the 
Christian religion not the philosophy of nature — The exist- 
ence of a God creator is not imposed upon reason as an a 
priori truth, nor of possible truth — Gods have always been 
an assumption among men — Theologico religious dogma and 
thaumaturgy — Criticism of the universal father's acts for 
his own glory- 
Discussion 23 — Pages 79 to 87 

More criticisms and the sole evidence of the ipse dixit 
— Comparison of the gods — Gunkel's Legends of Genesis — 
Discussion of traditions of the story of the gods — Compari- 
son of Hesiod and Moses — Theology and religion are neither 
science nor philosophy, nor do they found in objective fact 



XXIV CONTENTS 

or reason — They are but continued story-telling based upon 
the fictions of the ancients — The Christian religion the 
progeny of polytheism and monotheism. 

Discussion 24 — Pages 87 to 92 

A discussion of faith and relic cure — Discussion of the 
miracles of Jesus and his purposed miraculous kingdom on 
earth — Parenthetical question as to things ascribed to the 
sayings of Jesus, p. 88 — The folly of TeDeums on the tri- 
umph of battle or thanksgiving to God on worldly success 
— Mention of the chosen people. 

Discussion 25 — Pages 92 to 95 

The dark ages all Christian, no science — The kingdom 
of heaven absolutely monarchial, not democratic — Dis- 
cussion of the Old and New Testaments, the God and the 
Trinity. 

Discussion 26 — Pages 95 to 98 

No text books of the physics of the heavens declare the 
intelligible order of the stellar world as we know it — A dis- 
cussion of axiomatic truths — The fiction of a supernatural 
explains nothing — The inevitable mathematics of Space and 
Time bring into systematic order the whole universe. 

Discussion 27 — Pages 98 to 102 

The foreign spiritual — Eternal nature as the sum total 
of all that is, may hold reasonable grounds for belief in a 
future life, that cannot be reasonably believed to be fur- 
nished by the word-constructed and word-endowed God out- 
side of nature — All differences evolve from the mechanics of 
one matter, in the infinitude of its numbers, their combina- 
tions, forms and motions — Evolution — Intelligence — Space 
and Time determine the order of all changing existence. 

Discussion 28 — Pages 102 to 106 

Mistake of philosophy the postulate of one definite in- 
telligence — Creation endowment of matter with motions, and 
previous design can never yield a philosophy — Philosophy 
must found on axiomatics — The inevitable primal assump- 
tion not free choice, nor creation, nor creator of existence, 
but existence uncreated and eternal — Uncaused and eternal 
the necessary and primal postulate. 

Discussion 29 — Pages 106 to 109 

No tenable ground for hypothesis of a creator — Creator 
and creation versus eternal existence — Evolution versus cre- 
ation — Faraday's fourth state of matter. 

Discussion 30 — Pages 109 to 119 

Discussion of corpuscles and their associate electrons — • 
Infinite differences come from infinitesimal masses of mat- 



CONTENTS XXV 

ter in innumerable numbers in complex mechanics of posi- 
tions and motions — The vis viva of all difference whatever — 
Matter persists in one abiding quantity — Tyndall's rhetorical 
apostrophe criticized — Hylozoism denied — No order an im- 
possible conception — Intelligence — Cudworth on Truth — ■ 
Criticism of Kant's dictum relative to space. 

Discussion 31 — Pages 119 to 125 

Space is the where of all existence whatever — Berkeley 
and Kant's position relative to space analyzed — Transcen- 
dental apperception — Chaos denied — Deist versus Material- 
ist — Energy or force is matter in motion and quantified to 
the sum of matter. 

Discussion 32 — Pages 125 to 132 

Organo-genetic chemical elements of life — Life an ex- 
quisite architect and builder, as a tenant builds its own tene- 
ment, — tenant and tenement identified, one, yet two — Evo- 
lution manifest — The protista — The mechanics of matter 
— Chemical combinations, affinities and environments — Evo- 
lution extends to inorganic as well as to organic matter, and 
founds on the, postulate that matter is eternal and exist- 
ence uncaused. 

Discussion 33 — Pages 132 to 139 

Life, matter and motions considered relatively — Eter- 
nal existence the necessary postulate as opposed to the 
postulate in a transcendental. 

Discussion 34 — Pages 139 to 143 

Lord Kelvin — the noble Lord must be religious — - 
Analysis of God and Creation — Emotion a natural religion. 

Discussion 35 — Pages 143 to 147 

Every theology fictitious — Spinoza a pantheist, — in his 
day self-appreciating virtue held atheism a monstrous crim- 
inality — Pantheism, Akosmism and Atheism analyzed — The 
Materialist versus the Creationist — Apologetic juggling of 
the deist — No word in the Sanscrit, the language of the 
Aryan race, which signifies "to create,'; its source is the 
dogma of revelation by ignorance. 

Discussion 36 — Pages 147 to 151 

The Creator self-created is self-contradiction and denies 
his eternity — Scientific intelligence cannot aver creation or 
creator — The primal necessary affirmation is eternal uncre- 
ated existence, and all else is implicit therein — Atheism 
discussed — The hearsay proof of a creator — Clerk Maxwell 
quoted and analyzed— The impossible feat of a creation, the 
where, the when, the how and by whom — Could axiomatic 
truths be changed by a creator? 



XXVI CONTENTS 

Discussion 37 — Pages 151 to 155 

The self-contradiction of Christian theism — Clerk Max- 
well quoted on historicity of matter, the unit of matter, the 
electron, the law of natural selection, cathode particles — 
Query: Is this the key to an explanation of chemical phe- 
nomena — The eternal ever-changing dance goes on. 

Discussion 38 — Pages 151 to 161 

Tautology — The force of Clerk Maxwell's reasoning dis- 
cussed — No antecedent cause in eternal existence — The 
general faith of theism — Prof. Helmholtz' "The Principle 
of the Conservation of Forces" — The early religious train- 
ing of Faraday, Kelvin, Maxwell and others, clings tena- 
ciously, so that their statements relative to creation and the 
eternal existence of matter, are destructive of each other; 
and they rest on the ipse dixit of no authority — The gods 
the starting point, the glory of bards and story-tellers — The 
Grecian myths and the Mythopeic age — Physis and cosmos 
originated with the Greek philosophers — Unchangeable 
cosmic substance suggested by Xenophanes, geometrical 
combinations of Pythagorus approaching the explanation of 
physical phenomena; they all agree in recognizing objective 
truth in nature. 

Discussion 39 — Pages 161 to 167 

Author's conception of the Greek gods and religions — 
Tendency of men to seek a cause — Dreams and shadows — 
From barbaric experience to superstitions, religious notions, 
myths and dogmas, revelations and rituals — Theism is not 
the philosophy of thinkers. 

Discussion 40 — Pages 167 to 171 

The theist's dogma and the atheist's primal postulate — 
Moral character humanistic — Atheism the afterthought of 
larger intelligence and more moral life — Atheism, Hebrais- 
tic Monotheism, Christian theism, Hellenism, Modernism 
and Mohammedanism compared — Anti-War and Anti-Crim- 
inal act — Buddhism noted. 

Discussion 41 — Pages 171 to 174 

Why not eternal uncreated existence? 

Discussion 42 — Pages 174 to 178 

Matter needs no force foreign to its nature and sur- 
roundings to put and keep it in motions — The theistic tra- 
ditional empire of superstition, builded on visions, auditions, 
dreams and thaumaturgies — Idealism versus Materialism — 
The tracing of the pedigree of the ego and the lily — Aware- 
ness of positive existence — the very self. 



CONTENTS XXVII 

Discussion 43 — Pages 178 to 180 

Vitalization — Awareness — The cosmos inevitable. 

Discussion 44 — Pages 180 to 183 

Immaterial entity, spirit, ego as originator and master 
of matter, is but an aristocratic sentiment — Matter is the 
sole ground of psychic as well as non-psychic phenomena — 
Life, consciousness, and volitional acts are the evolved prod- 
ucts by evolution through the mechanics of one substance in 
related positions and motions. 

Discussion 45 — Pages 183 to 189 

The intelligible universe everywhere open to intelli- 
gence through the function of the most complex of all com- 
plexes, the human material organism — "God made it so" 
discussed — We think the thoughts of nature instead of 
thinking the thoughts of God — Nature evisaged in her own 
consciousness of herself — Creation discussed as a mythical 
tradition — Nativity of the soul? 

Discussion 46 — Pages 189 to 197 

Ancient philosophy "ex nihilo nihil fit" — All theists 
and atheists alike repudiated the idea of creation — The in- 
adequate evidence for creationism — Religionists do not 
found dogmas on scientific proofs, but override and set at 
naught the commonsense of enlightened men in the sweep 
of childish faith — The a priori of space and time — Infinitesi- 
mal calculus — Integral calculus — Space and time are primal 
facts discovered by nature's function of self-intelligence. 

Discussion 47 — Pages 197 to 202 

Aristotle and Bacon on physics — Spinoza's definitions, 
propositions and demonstrations and the philosophy of Des- 
cartes deduced from a gratuitous and needless assumption 
of creation — Theologico-metaphysical speculation in un- 
trammeled course from generalization to generalization al- 
ways reaches Pantheism, God everywhere and in all things 
— An argument. 

Discussion 48 — Pages 202 to 207 

Positional and motile interrelated order of corpuscles 
or electrons, atoms, molecules and masses — Consciousness 
and free will — When creator summoned, there came a 
swarm of creators, Gods and Goddesses that held the world 
in thrall for ages — The swaddle and the toga — "Imminent 
creation" — The Christian doctrine never proven true. 

Discussion 49 — Pages 207 to 220 

The assertion of creation a dogma inherited from the 
past, with little or no thought given to the question of abso- 
lute origins or to creation itself — The averment is without 



XXVIII CONTENTS 

necessity for itself — The only ground for the averment of 
creation is that the creator made verbal declaration of it, 
or inspired its announcement — Its improbability, the impos- 
sibility of its proof, its unreasonableness and the fact of the 
changes the ancent writing is known to have undergone, the 
improbability of God inspiring men to speak or record the 
truth about himself, or having done it, would suffer it to be 
lost or become entangled and incorporated with that not in- 
spired, make the averment puerile — Christ's miracles not 
noticed by the Romans — The old and new testaments dis- 
cussed — Correction and establishment and selection of the 
scriptural texts — the Catholic Bible — The 120,000 enumer- 
ated errors, the 30,000 important ones — The vision to Con- 
stantine — The standard of the cross — The success of the 
Battle of Milvian Bridge — Constantine as the Christian head 
of the allied church and the world, falsifying the words of 
Jesus, "My kingdom is not of this world" — The Oecumen- 
ical council at Nicaea, 325 A. D., to determine the relation 
between the Father and the Son — The argument of Arius, 
the presbyter — The Trinity — The sectional hostility of the 
Christian religion — The torture and death of Hypatia by 
the monks; painful but justifiable to save men's souls — Vide 
Calvin in burning Servetus — Christianity; Judaistic, Hellen- 
istic and its tritheism an inheritance from Polytheism — A 
quotation from the lecture of Loisy, the recusant Catholic 
priest — Religions that found on claim of a divine revelation 
and antagonize one another, mutually defeat the claim of 
each other — The presto change of something from nothing 
by flat — Discussion of the plagues of Egypt — The miracles 
of Moses — No record by the Egyptians of the Hebrew so- 
journ — Why not the eternal, uncreated substantive uni- 
verse? — Mathematical order from physics to psychics, from 
corpuscles to Sirius and Canopus — Proctor's "Other Worlds 
than Ours" quoted from and discussed. 

Discussion 50 — Pages 220 to 228 
Space itself is a prime factor in the evolution of life 
and intelligence — Astronomy and Chemistry — The matter 
of our bodies as ancient as the sun, our minds only of yes- 
terday — Creation, its inveterate allegation from custom and 
habit — Hebrew creation still taught — Sir William Hamilton, 
Metaphysics, quoted and discussed — The absurdity of the 
Metamorphosis of the Deity into materiality, its then division 
into suns and planets, asteroids, comets, meteors, Great 
Canopus and the dust, and a further development into the 
Upas, Apple and Orange Tree, the Cobra-de-Capella, the 
Lion and the Lamb, Torquemada and Jesus — J. D. Morrell 
on Imminence, a quotation and discussion — Unintelligent 
but intelligible laws of material procedure, not in harmony 
with Diogenes Laertius' quotation of Anaxagorus — Nothing 
for evidence of Creation but the ipse dixit impossible. 



CONTENTS XXIX 

Discussion 51 — Pages 228 to 235 

Parsons on "Belief and Credibility" quoted at length 
and discussed — Quotation from Mill's Logic and its test ap- 
plied — The credibility of evidence analyzed. 

Discussion 52 — Pages 235 to 242 

There are grounds for a religion of nature as supreme, 
but in this there is no theos or theology — Theology rests on 
no better grounds than the Theogeny of Hesiod — The 
atavism in Christian theology — The feeling of dependence 
in the norm of human nature — Theistic and religious faith, 
a subjective state, and for its most potent affects rests upon 
a mental picture of faith's own drawing — No evidence that 
mind or spirit is a self-existent or created entity, existing 
independently of matter — The possibility of a future life on 
the ground of self-existent and eternal matter — The warp 
and woof of life in the dust and its moving mechanics — 
Matter suspended in space — Nature's differences keep na- 
ture's peace — The functioning of the continuance of the 
identity of ourselves — Life finds its source and seat and ca- 
pacity in material relations. 

Discussion 53 — Pages 242 to 251 

By a progressive evidence that nature is complete, 
spiritualistic thaumaturgy or theistic causation has been 
gradually dropped out from text books, on science — Theism 
lingers as a relic of developed barbaric animism — The de- 
ductive reasoning is the mathematical, whose principles are 
axiomatic — Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" discussed 
in connection with coenethesis — The brilliant and famous 
intellect of Rene Descartes might never have been, and 
geometrical magnitude by algebraic equations have been un- 
known — The germination, growth and development of all 
life discussed — Descartes' Philosophy criticised — The thing 
that thinks — The juxtaposition of the parts of matter result 
in the phenomena of life. (Mill's Logic) — Descartes' con- 
clusions further criticized — The objective entity — The idea 
of making that clings to the race was probably the origin of 
the suggestion of being greater than human, and of how 
sought causes became Gods — God in the garden, and Zeus 
on Olympus. 

Discussion 54 — Pages 251 to 256 

Mind or consciousness is of the physical processes — 
Query: Does matter as matter think and feel? No other 
origin for psychics than physics — The difference in ante- 
cedents from consequents lies in difference of mechanical 
arrangement of matter — Query of the two gases uniting 
chemically forming water — From the organic to the inor- 
ganic and the inorganic to the organic are but shifting me- 
chanical forms and their consequent properties and funo 



XXX CONTENTS 

tions, and the how or why answered "God does it" offers no 
explanation — The germ cells may compass the heritage of 
the species — Anthropological dissertation — The subjective 
and objective. 

Discussion 55 — Pages 256 to 265 

The objective being a property of life with its riches of 
intelligence, is created within the organism and is the 
function of material processes — Chemical affinities and their 
opposites — Deadly poisons but chemical combinations of 
the same kinds of matter, which in their combinations are 
constituents of our bodies and our foods — Prof. Elmer 
Gates quoted, his experiments discussed, and his system of 
scientific mental culture and discipline pronounced decided- 
ly materialistic by the author, though Gates does not label 
his conclusions — All response in the whole of inanimate 
nature is mechanical to mechanics — All life known to man 
is an inherent property of indwelling awareness — Aware- 
ness discussed. 

Discussion 56 — Pages 265 to 272 

The methods of creating life and intelligence the same 
as for creating chemical properties, but more complex — 
Alphabets and manuals — Orderly relations of intelligibility 
■ — Nature's differences all orderly — Nature's universal intel- 
ligibility not ordered by intelligence but intelligence the 
complement or counter-part of nature's intelligibilty — How 
nature expresses consciousness of herself — Awareness orig- 
inates in the chemistry of protoplasm, and is no more trace- 
able into the elements of protoplasm than is water traceable 
into hydrogen or oxygen as such, but only into their spe- 
cific union called chemical — The albuminoid substance con- 
stituting the physical basis of life in plants and animals — 
The protoplasm builds up every vegetable and animal fab- 
ric, but itself devoid of histological structure-cell — The life 
of organism as a whole consists of the continuous waste and 
repair of the protoplasmic material of its cells — Indications 
that life began on our earth, not by a meteor dropped from 
another orb, nor created by God, but presumably evolved 
from chemical unions, for we cannot adopt the aphorism 
"life only from life" — Spontaneous generation discussed — 
The beginning of life discussed from various standpoints. 

Discussion 57 — Pages 272 to 278 
The only true philosophy — Fiat creation unintelligible 
and a monstrous fiction — No superuniversal supernatural 
or metaphysical not caused by physical and mechanical — 
Kantian metaphysical dogmas criticised — "The Principles 
of Human Knowledge" by George Berkeley discussed and 
geological eras, periods and data referred to — The conse- 
crating prayer does not transsubstantiate. 



CONTENTS XXXI 

Discussion 58 — Pages 278 to 285 

Bishop Berkeley of Cloyne presented his idealism as a 
scheme of religious dogma, and as a silencing argument 
against atheism — Quotations from his "Human Knowledge" 
and from his "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Phil- 
onous" argumentatively criticised — An argument: Sub- 
stance versus Spirit. 

Discussion 59 — Pages 285 to 296 

A continuation of the argument against Berkeley, Des- 
cartes and Kant, analyzing the subjective, objective 
thought-world, real-world and the scholastic realism of 
Plato — The evidences of positive existence brought forward 
— Theological superstition only modified by discarding mul- 
tiplicity of Gods — The attempt of August Comte to inter- 
pret nature — His theology only human and physical — The 
suggestion of greater than himself his only pragmatic model 
— More attentive and profound consideration of the uni- 
verse will disclose our cause, origin, destiny, ourselves, all 
our realizations, cause and effect, the false and the true, the 
good and the bad, in fact everything — Creation or the actual 
causal becoming of matter not thinkable. 

Discussion 60 — Pages 296 to 301 

The God of the Hebrew Pentateuch, the towering 
anthropomorphism, the Hebrew tutelary God, an exclusive- 
ly tribes' God, jealous, proselyting and only superior in the 
physical miraculous, outdoing the Egyptian Gods in a sei; 
contest, could drive out the inhabitants of the mountains, 
but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, be- 
cause they had chariots of iron — Nimrod — Samson — David 
— Hercules — Hercules' twelve public services — Hebrew 
world not less ignorant at time of Jesus than when Old 
Testament was imposed upon the people for historical 
truth — The sum total of all we know — Maxwell quoted and 
discussed — Quantitative substance self-actuated, unbegun as 
time, and as time forever enduring, of infinite fulness of 
actualities and potentialities, that are ever actual — Space 
and time, inextinguishable, unvarying objective verities, 
subjective, determining, measuring validities. 

Discussion 61 — Pages 301 to 309 

Eternal existence from which the subject self, ego or 
the I, though not matter itself, is evolved, as treated in this 
discussion, a philosophy in itself — Radium and its wonders 
noted — Liquid air. 

Discussion 62 — Pages 309 to 312 

The creation passages of the Bible quoted and discuss- 
ed — Jesus discussed with the miracles attributed to him — ■ 



XXXII CONTENTS 

The prophetic announcement, virginal conception, Holy 
Ghost fathering, and a baby half God and half human, the 
basing of which on a dream and that the prophecy be ful- 
filled on the ex parte testimonj^, without cross examination; 
simile of a black child born of a black father and a white 
mother — The religion really generated by the desires and 
fears of a people of ignorance. 

Discussion 63 — Pages 312 to 317 

Deals with the Christian apologetics, which is defined 
as the defense and vindication of Christianity. 

Discussion 64 — Pages 317 to 324 

The scientific view of the universe does not warrant 
the deduction of its creation — The theism of Jews modified 
by Gentiles and called Christian, equaled and surpassed cen- 
turies before birth of Jesus, by the atheistic ethics of 
Gotama, showing the whole matter of gods, devils and re- 
ligion to be subjective naturally, early human, inferential 
deposit and outgrowth of man's desire to know ultimate 
cause, thus teaching the origin of evil spirits, demons, 
devils, good spirits, angels, gods and one supreme God — ■ 
The parallels of Christianity and atheistic Buddhism — Dis- 
sertation upon the histology of religions, witch-craft, 
sorcery, and why Plato never meddled in politics. 

Discussion 65 — Pages 324 to 333 

Discussion of the 14th Century, the devil and the 
black death with no father God to make the reservation as 
was made for Job — The erudition of Balaam's Ass — The 
fading of the narrow spirit of patriotism into wide cosmo- 
politan philanthropy only strictly limited by the creed — Dis- 
cussion of Arian dictum, scourging of the widow's feet, the 
flogging of the virgins — The riot and bloodshed caused by 
the followers of St. Cyril of Alexandria — Quotation from 
the Lord: "I make peace and create evil; I, the Lord, do all 
these things" — The reformation and the witchcraft, super- 
stition — St. Dominic in the Inquisition. 

Discussion 66 — Pages 333 to 336 

The question of demoniac possession or obsession not 
soon to be determined by universal agreement — Jesus 
saith "If my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
servants fight" — Doubts as to the real character of Jesus 
and the real truth of what he said and did — Other quota- 
tions from the old and new testaments, and a comparison 
of the Roman and Grecian Gods with the Christian Gods, 
and the Virgin Mary. 

Discussion 67 — Pages 336 to 342 

The time and extent no evidence of the truth of the 



CONTENTS XXXIII 

underlying theology — Theism wholly subjective, admitting 
of no objective verification — Enthusiasm but a misconceit 
of being inspired — Derivation of the word "inspired" and a 
discussion covering Luther, Calvin, John Alexander Dowe, 
the Mohammedan Dervishes and the monastics, zealots, 
Simon, and the hallucination of St. Anthony — Further dis- 
cussion, analysis and argument upon the question of relig- 
ion. 

Discussion 68 — Pages 342 to 348 

Celibacy and the exaltation of virginity, the degrada- 
tion of maternity and paternity — Tenets of the Church be- 
ing opposed to the injunction "Be fruitful, multiply and re- 
plenish the earth" — The Apocalypse estimate of male vir- 
ginity — The defilement by women — No marriages in heaven 
— Male Godheads — Man in the image of God — The realizing 
certainty of a sinning posterity, Adam sexed or unsexed, in- 
competent to the dire results — Dissertation upon man, 
woman and child bearing — The sex literature of the Bible 
— The nature of man — Mating in all bisexed animals — Con- 
clusion, not of religious but of nature's adequate mechanics 
for a perfect, effective function — The perfection of natural 
construction, the eye. 

Discussion 69 — Pages 348 to 355 

Parasite the cause, man the host of trichina spiralis — 
Man naturally has no pre-eminence over trichinae — The 
basis of Christian theology not a priori, only historically as- 
sertive — The God of the Hebrews visible and audible, and 
challenge to his existence an appeal to individual and ra- 
tional sensible experience — The evidence of "justification 
by faith alone" — The ass spoke to Balaam and the Lord 
spoke to the fish, and Jonah, the vomit that went down to 
Ninevah — The horror of unbelieving — The popular standing 
of Christianity rests upon the proof of natural impossibili- 
ties, the creation of matter, the infinite extension, om- 
niscience of a personality and the human birth of a God, all 
impossible of proof — The condemnation of Socrates — A 
treatise of the Japanese to show that all moral virtues did 
not originate from Jesus of Nazareth or the Hebrews — 
Reference to God, theism and the imperfect effects of it. 

Discussion 70 — Pages 355 to 358 

All properties, qualities, capacities and differences, 
originate in physical difference of positional interrelations 
and numbers of one substantive matter and its motions, 
delineated. 

Discussion 71— Pages 358 to 365 

Life a possibility of matter, and matter becomes living 
hy special interrelations of positions and motions with it- 



XXXIV CONTENTS 

self, under a definite environment, delineated — Sensitivity 
an intrinsic essential and universal recognition of matter 
with itself — Cell life — Germ Cells — Volition — Human blun- 
dering — Recognition inherent in material relationality — 
The question of the creation and the universe. 

Discussion 72 — Pages 365 to 371 

The question critically analyzed; a beginning, hence a 
creation denied, and a general survey of these questions. 

Discussion 73 — Pages 371 to 375 

This thinking thing; an anthropological dissertation, 
ending in a criticism of inhumanity. 

Discussion 74 — Pages 375 to 380 

Man the only beast of prey that prays — Evidence that 
other animals love life as we do — Civilized man has no pity 
or fellow feeling for the animal bred and killed to fatten 
his bank account, and only the "Heathen atheistic Budd- 
hist" who neither breeds nor kills nor eats his more distant 
kin, has awakened to the savagery of it — The cries of 
agony and sight of wounds moves not the butcher (who 
prays in articulate sounds) to relent as human prayer does 
not move a defender in the skies — Human slavery — The di- 
vine right that human might makes — When man the 
stronger, divine right is with man; when the animal is 
stronger, and the killer and the eater, the divine right is 
with the animal — The skies silent in the one case as in the 
other — Argument against the assumption of a fatherly cre- 
ator — Theism is wholly subjective, emotional and assertive, 
and as impossible of objective verification as the gods of 
ancient Greece and Rome — Miracle has ceased and there is 
now nothing but home-made evidence of Gods — The atti- 
tude of the orthodox Fatherly good Creator analyzed and 
criticized — Quotation of Fairbairn that is the experience of 
multitudes, page 379. 

Discussion 75 — Pages 380 to 389 

Resume of the philosophy of the eternity of matter — 
The all commanding and victorious feature of materialism 
— Natural phenomena — Spirits and their communications 
through a material medium — If they are, they are some- 
where in the summerland — Telepathy — Transmission of 
light and heat — The medium for vibratory motions — Elec- 
trical and magnetic phenomena — The property and func- 
tions of the ether — Ground of hope more secure on neces- 
sary averment of eternal uncreated existence that human 
personality may be continued after seeming extinction in- 
death, than from the almost universal desire for it or a fic- 
titious theistic scheme of human imagination and construe- 



CONTENTS XXXV 

tion — THE REASONS FOR IT, page 387 — Property of life 
— The store-house of eternal universal ongoing, self-evolv- 
ing nature, may hold the power to so continue it and all it 
stands for in its conscious development — The necessary 
posit and affirmation — Scientific dictum is that all life is 
wholly the evolved property and function of matter. 



The Eternity of Matter 



A Series of Discussions Affirming 
This Proposition. 



Discussion 1. Nothing- can begin to exist without 
cause for beginning to exist. Nothing can be its own 
<:ause for beginning to exist. Something does exist. 
Therefore something exists that did not begin to exist. 
"What exists without beginning to exist cannot cease to 
«xist. By existence is meant the contradiction of non-ex- 
istence, something as opposed to nothing. Eternal ex- 
istence cannot change in quantity. But it is that which 
is involved in all actual and possible changes, becomings 
and ceasings ; all phenomena and events ; all that presup- 
poses space and time as conditions. This totality is the 
universe, nature or cosmos. That of the universe which 
changes in form, property and function, but not in quan- 
tity, is substance or matter. And it must have some 
mode of existing as fixed in quantity as itself. This is 
motion, otherwise called force or energy. This double 
aspect is known in physics as the conservation of matter 
.and the correlation of forces, and are called by Haeckel 
the law of substance. All the affections and forces of 
matter appear to be modes of construction and of mo- 
tion. And of necessity substance must be in motion or 
not in motion. Space and time being necessary presup- 



2 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

positions and orders of existing and changing cannot be 
existence or change in any sense in which they must be 
presupposed in the existing of matter and its changes. 
The sum total of all material substance, its phenomenal 
becomings with their conditions, space and time, is the 
universe. 

This universal all, the uncaused and caused, the per- 
sistent and the transient, contains all living and not liv- 
ing, and is forever evolving orderly forms and functions,, 
and dissolving into other orderly forms and functions,, 
by virtue in existing in motions and in the inevitable 
orders of space and time. Descartes held that as it is the 
nature of matter to be extended in three directions, so it 
is the essence of extent to be occupied. But whether space 
is a plenum or not, it cannot be identified with its con- 
tent. There is evident impropriety in calling absolute 
vacuity substance or phenomenal existence. Space and 
time cannot change. They are presupposed in all that 
exists or changes. They are not objects of the senses, but 
necessary affirmations of intelligence, deduced from sense 
percepts and declared to be eternal, universal, necessary 
and self-evident verities, independent of any content,, 
and also of the intelligence that affirms their eternal ne- 
cessity of being. Some one has said : ' ' Matter and force 
are mere abstractions and mental symbols. To look upon 
them as realities is a self -mystification. ' ' From what are 
matter and force abstracted, and from what reality more 
real are they symbols? 

Discussion 2. We must affirm that something exists 
without beginning to exist. And it must be known to 
reason and experience, or it could not be so affirmed. 
And nothing is known to have this property if matter 
has not. We cannot postulate existence upon a primal 
beginnning to exist, but upon a necessary eternal exist- 
ing. And what is the validity, the evidencing value of 
verifiable scientific intelligence; of axiomatic proposi- 
tions; of averments we feel must be true of necessity 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 3 

everywhere, always have been and forever must be, unde- 
termined by our volition or any other whatsoever, to have 
them so; of the certainty we feel in the objective as well 
as subjective truth of the mathematical and logical pro- 
cesses and conclusions? My conviction is that they are 
the verities of reason and experience, because they are 
inwrought in the universality of the material space and 
time universe. Intelligence is nature's deliverance of it- 
self to itself. And is the property of consciousness in the 
most complex human organisms by virtue of the com- 
plexity of matter in positional relations and motions. 
And in the less complex animal organisms the property 
of these relations avails to adapt the internal to exter- 
nal without the clear consciousness of it. This is usually 
called instinct. Eternal existence and its becomings 
must involve its own philosophy. Nor can it have a for- 
eign interpretation because there is nothing foreign and 
no foreigner. In the necessary affirmation of eternal or 
uncaused existence lies the implication of the denial of 
absolute creation. Since what we must affirm to exist 
without beginning, we must deny to have been created. 
It is self-evident that whatever exists has some mode of 
existing. And some eternal existence is quantitatively 
unchangeable, its mode of existing must be constant in 
quantity. It is the deliverance of science both experi- 
mental and theoretical, the quantum of both matter and 
energy in the universe is fixed. "The total energy of 
any material system is a quantity which can neither be 
increased nor diminished by any action between the parts 
of the system, though it may be transformed into any 
of the forms of which energy is susceptible. A material 
system may be a single material particle, or a body of 
finite size, or any number of such bodies, or it may be 
extended so as to include the whole universe." MAX- 
WELL'S MATTER AND MOTION. 

Discussion 3. Mechanics extend throughout the uni- 
verse. We have said that existence and change presup- 



4 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

pose the verities of space and time. But their contents 
can dictate nothing to these verities. They of necessity 
impose their orders upon their contents. The mathe- 
matics express these orders, laws, or interrelations, to 
which matter its motions, their forms, properties and 
functions must conform. And as changes of material 
forms and their properties are always and everywhere 
going on through motions, motion force or energy, must 
be the universal and necessary mode of material existing. 
The mathematics have an unerring, intelligible and uni- 
versal validity, because they express space and time re- 
lations of material changes and functions, and of its su- 
preme function mind, and would be true in their eternal 
principles Avere there neither matter, energy nor mind. 
The universe is mathematical, therefore intelligible. 

Kant held that space and time are psychological 
only, pure intuitions. But intuitions of what? They 
must have content. And it is held that intuitions are of 
two orders and sources. Contingent objects of sense, and 
objects of the reason, or the recognitions of truths that 
are necessary and universal. Space and time are of the 
latter class. They are psychological and valid in the sub- 
ject, because they are first valid in objective universe. 
Mind does not create these truths; it simply perceives 
the abstract relations to be universal. They are eternal 
and necessary conditions alike of self and not self. The 
internal self is but the recognition of one eternal entity 
with infinite difference of functional becomings. It is 
one of those fundamental truths that nature has brought 
to consciousness in the advanced psychology of the hu- 
man being, that she is everywhere and in all things in- 
telligible, because she is universally interrelated in posi- 
tions, events, actions, quantities, forms, functions, num- 
bers, processes, properties, and qualities, in the world 
animate, inanimate and psychic. The relational is ex- 
pressible in the exactness of methematical science. The 
material universe being energized by motions, is a dy- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 5 

namic mathematical system, and therefore intelligible. 
The absolutely unknowable is not a deliverance of na- 
ture in the consciousness of itself. She has no secrets 
which she cannot or will not reveal in consciousness. The 
subject or self is only the object or not-self come to local 
consciousness. This seems to me nearly self-evident. Be- 
cause I cannot recognize a self except as evolved from 
the not-self. Life is the natural property of a highly 
complex local chemistry of matter under certain condi- 
tions of the environment. For wherever it appears it be- 
longs to an identical or similar chemical combination, and 
involves a degree of sensitivity or awareness. This in- 
creases, differentiates and is advanced by contributory 
special organs from the protista and vegital kingdom 
and lower animal, and becomes intelligence in the brains 
of the higher animals and self-conscious, calculating and 
reasoning in the brain of man. "Life," says Haeckel, 
"may be conceived as a special process of movement. 
Recent study has shown that this is always conneetcd 
with a particular chemical substance, plasm, and con- 
sists essentially in a circulation of matter, or metabolism. 
At the same time modern science has shown that the 
sharp distinction formerly drawn between the organic 
and the inorganic cannot be sustained, but that the two 
kingdoms are profoundly and inseparably united." 

Discussion 4. Nature must furnish the conscious- 
ness of itself. And shall we say it belies itself or is true 
to itself, in the consciousness it furnishes? Our minds 
(a word which generalized consciousness) must be form- 
ed, equipped and empowered, by that of which they par- 
take, the necessary and universal, and the contingent and 
fleeting. Hence, sensuous and empirical facts, and 
axiomatic propositions, and reasoned conclusions from 
given data. The allegation that space and time have 
only a psychological, an ideal and not a real objective 
validity, carries with it the idealization of all things, and 
denies any other reality. "Idealism is the doctrine that 



6 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

all reality is of the nature of thought. The universe of 
matter and change are only psychical." It is the very 
nature of Kantian idealism that objects are not there 
until they are thought : says Edward Caird, as quoted in 
Century Dictionary. Then if objects are not there until 
they are thought, and are there when and as thought, 
thought creates the objects. Then can there be any need 
of going abroad to see the w r orld and make discoveries? 
And the architect has but to think out his materials 
wanted and lo ! they are there as idealized. This reduces 
to phantom all sense objects. Astronomy, chemistry and 
physics, all the concrete sciences, all domesticity, and 
every thing that involves sense perception becomes phan- 
tomized. The abstract mathematics would perhaps re- 
main, but they would have no practical external applica- 
tion. Indeed, externality, objectivity, is swallowed up 
in the abyss of the subject. Then our sensuous knowl- 
edge does not give to us the reality of things. Nature 
has belied itself in fashioning organs of sense by the very 
affections and properties of things which these affections 
and properties have created and endowed with capacity 
for their appreciation, as light has formed and dowered 
the eye, sound or tone the ear, and so with the rest of 
the sense organs. 

Discussion 5. Energy or force in the last analysis 
and its ultimate conception is motion of matter. This of 
course, includes statics as well as dynamics. And as the 
quantity neither of matter nor of energy in the universe 
can be increased nor diminished, the sum of motion in the 
universe for a constant unit of time is a fixed quantity. 
Then the universe is one all embracing and inter-con- 
nected system, and all action is of and among its parts. 
Therefore the quantity of its substance and of its force 
cannot be more or less than they now are and ever have 
been. These two aspects of existence are not interchang- 
able. Matter can never by its incessant motions and col- 
lisions be worn away and finally cease to exist. Nor can 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 7 

the energy of matter which is its motions and mode of ex- 
isting ever become exhausted and universal and absolute 
quiescence prevail. "Energy cannot exist except as a 
moving state of matter. It has no individual existence. 
It is the universal and necessary mode of existing: of mat- 
ter. It is evident that matter must be either in motion or 
not in motion. Scientific observation finds it to be every- 
where in motion. And the theory of the universe founded 
on the law of gravitation and other verifiable data, war- 
rants the conclusion that the motion of matter is its nec- 
essary and universal mode of existing. Matter being 
eternal and uncaused, its motion is involved in its self- 
existence. The universe of matter, space and time, holds 
within itself all laws of being and the complete reason 
of all changes, becomings and ceasings. Matter is in 
nebula — and world-masses, meteors, molecules, atoms, 
and corpuscles, according- to the present status of sci- 
ence. Every one of these bodies of matter is in its indi- 
vidual as well as its grouped motion. ' ' The earth is con- 
tinually revolving on its axis and traveling: round the 
sun. It also has a motion on its axis which is completed 
in about 19 years, and another which is accomplished in 
25,868 years, and a fifth motion with the Solar system 
which may require millons of years for its completion." 
Besides these motions of the earth as one coherent mass, 
there are the individual motions of the smaller groups 
composing it, the molecules, atoms, and corpuscles, re- 
sulting in forces and properties and functions, as light, 
heat, electrical, magnetic, chemical, molecular, atomic, 
corpuscular, crystalline, organic, physic and others. All 
are but varieties of the eternal mode of existing and 
functioning of matter. Let us bear in mind that what is 
eternal has no originator. And what comes of it is pos- 
sible and certainly intrinsic and involved of necessity, 
and includes life and all that appears volitional and con- 
tingent. 

Discussion 6. Physics and chemistry have lately 



8 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

made great discoveries in the nature and possibilities of 
matter, its forms, forces, functions, and properties. The 
wonderful detectives of nature's secrets carry implica- 
tions far beyond their direct revelations, as spectrum 
analysis, radio-activity, the magnet, prism, electroscope, 
electrometer, spectroscope, radiometer, bolometer, Kinet- 
oscope, telescope, microscope and many others. The atom 
until the past few years, has been held to be the least 
quantity in which any kind of matter existed separately 
and in itself and entered into chemical union with other 
atomic kinds of matter to form the 250,000 or more dif- 
ferences of material substances. So there would be just 
so many kinds of atoms as kinds of matter, now num- 
bering in the latest compiled list that I have seen, 78. 
But it is now held by the leading physicists and chem- 
ists, that there is really but one ultimate kind of matter. 
And the atoms are all bodies compounded of this one 
universal matter. And all difference of form, property, 
quality and function depend upon the numbers, the rela- 
tive positions as grouped together, and the motions of 
each individual part or corpuscle in the atom, and atoms 
as grouped in the molecule, and these as they make up 
the separate mass from other masses. According to this 
mechanico-mathematical conclusion, and if so it can be 
set aside only by its peer of certainty, all the different 
kinds of matter as gold, iron, copper, carbon, sulphur, 
arsenic, oxygen, etc., with all their difference of proper- 
ties, uses, and functions, are made so by the different 
modes of construction and motion of the ultimate parti- 
cles of one homogeneous matter. The least number of 
these corpuscles associated in any atom is the hydrogen 
atom, and this is approximately 1,000, and in the atom 
of uranium they are 238,000. It is a wonderful achieve- 
ment of human intellect that it has determined magni- 
tudes so near to zero. And still more amazing that nature 
accomplishes all her differences, even the conception of it, 
by the manipulation of infinite numbers of one homoge- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 9 

neous instrument in the unerring exactness of space and 
time infinitesimal relations. The detective electricity, be- 
ing put upon the case to determine whether the atom is 
an association of smaller particles of matter, or is really 
as has hitherto been supposed, the potency of absolute 
singleness, has discovered the atom to be a close corpora- 
tion of unknown antiquity, of at least nearly 1,000 mem- 
bers, and increasing through the list of 78 different kinds 
of corporations or atoms to 238,000 members. The atom 
then is a complex system. It is stated in "New Knowl- 
edge" that the density of the lightest substance, that of 
the hydrogen atom, is only one sixty millionth of the 
heaviest, the uranium atom. 

Discussion 7. Several mathematicians have essayed 
to determine the diameter and weight of molecules. Sir 
William Thompson said in 1870 that about two million 
molecules of hydrogen in a row would reach a milli- 
metre; and two hundred million million million would 
weigh about a milligram. A millimetre is about one 
twenty-fifth of an inch, and a milligram is about one 
sixty-fifth of a grain. Molecules are associated groups of 
atoms from two to perhaps thousands. And the atom 
contains from 1,000 to more than 200,000 corpuscles 
moving about at great speed within the compass of the 
atom. The corpuscle is a newly discovered bit of matter, 
the smallest thing known to man. The corpuscles do by 
no means, fill the domain of the atom. Dr. W. Hampson, 
author of "Radium Explained," compares the unoccu- 
pied capacity of an atom and room for the spontaneous 
motion of its corpuscles, to a gigantic football, empty, 
except the smallest grains of dust floating in its inside. 

These corpuscles may be the naked material whose 
infinite numbers are the eternal quantitative matter of 
the universe, and whose correlative positions and mo- 
tions constitute all phenomena of inanimate, animate 
and psychic nature. This is saying that all phenomena 
including conscious, have their source in matter and its 



10 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

motions. Therefore the universe is a system of mechanics. 
Matter considered simply as static corpuscles, seems to 
have no properties but number, geometrical form, and 
gravitational weight. And in these respects each cor- 
puscle is a copy of every other. And all properties and 
functions whatever arise from, or are involved in, the 
forms of construction, the modes, directions, and veloci- 
ties of motions of these minutest parts, and these grouped 
into atoms, these into molecules, and these massed into 
meteorites, planets, suns, and nebulae. From whatever 
source corpuscles are derived, and from the varied meth- 
ods of their investigations, they reveal themselves as 
homogeneous in all respects except their motions which 
differ from 10,000 to 100,000 miles a second. We need 
not be surprised that nature's differences arise from a 
basic undermost that is all alike and destitute of prop- 
erties except mass and motion. Chemistry shows dis- 
tinctly that properties arise out of constructions of ma- 
terial elements, which elements not so constructed, con- 
tain not a trace of the distinguishing properties. Life, 
as a property or function, appears to inhere in a definite 
construction of certain chemical elements. In other con- 
structions of the same elements there is no life. Among 
nature 's wonders is the fact that the differences that dis- 
tinguish things, properties, qualities, functions, and uses, 
are evolved from constructions whose constituents are 
destitute of the properties. 

We have no reason to hold the exactness of mass, 
form, and number of elemental atomic, and molecular 
pieces of matter which nature builds into exquisite 
structures, are telelogical affairs, with the designed pur- 
pose to realize the properties, functions or effects of 
which the combinations are the evolutional cause. We 
have every reason to believe that matter has forever ex- 
isted, and whatever becomes is involved in its nature. As 
intelligence is a consequence of chemical exactness of 
combinations, chemical combinations cannot be the con- 



THE ETERNITY .OF MATTER 11 

sequence of intelligence. We have no need to hold that 
the adjustments of relations in nature and means to 
ends presuppose intelligence as their reason. The laws of 
nature are nothing but the interrelations of its parts, and 
are involved in eternal existence and are its modes of ex- 
isting. The saying is not true that nothing can be gotten 
out of things that is not in them. Light and heat and 
colors come from the relative positions and motions of 
matter. A beam of light from the sun is white. But an- 
alyzed by the prism it is divided into seven differently 
colored rays, not one being white ; and each color is de- 
termined to be what it is by the rapidity of the motion 
the ray is in. We are told by the scientific investigator, 
that the red ray undulates 417 million million times a 
second, and the violet ray 696 million million times a 
second; and 39,000 waves of red light, and 575,000 waves 
of violet light would measure an inch. "And as light 
travels 184,000 miles per second, that length of ray 
streams into the eye each second. A wave of violet light 
trembles or pulsates in a second, 727,000,000 times." 

Discussion 8. Our different sense organs and their 
unlike functions have arisen from and are constituted 
of cells which in their origin were the exoderm or skin 
layer, and were either alike, indifferent to, or alike sus- 
ceptible to the varied stimulants of the environment. The 
brain is also developed from the same embryonic outer 
skin layer, upon which the vibrations of the outer world 
have for unknown aeons been beating their likeness and 
building material forms, making infinitesimal increments 
of effects, preserving the same and sending them down 
the line of descent from the one celled organism, the 
moneron, through all intermediates to the many million 
celled organism, man. The organs of the special senses 
and of thought being thus produced, educated and adapt- 
ed to appreciate the objects have originated and 
huilt up their material forms, and endowed their func- 
tions. Then what the normal and especially trained 



12 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

senses testify to, cannot be called in question by any bet- 
ter qualified or more truthful witness. This may be put 
against the idealism of Bishop Berkeley and Immanuel 
Kant. Of all search for permanent existence, the eternal 
sensible world is universally presented and pre-eminent- 
ly verified, and the proof of other facts rests upon the 
verity of it. It has produced the sense organs and the 
thought organs, and their functions of sensation and of 
thinking. The internal or subjective is the product of 
external objective nature. Self is a localized, specialized, 
vitalized, psychicalized bit of material nature, brought to 
the clear and distinct function of external perception 
and of internal feeling and reasoning. As Prof. Clifford 
says : ' ' Reason, intelligence and volition, are made up of 
elements themselves not rational, not intelligent, not 
conscious. ' ' 

Chemistry everywhere surprises by the appearance 
of properties in compounds that do not belong to their 
constituents. For instance, sulphur, a solid element, and 
oxygen, a gas, in neither is there a trace of acidity, com- 
bining as S03, and still there is no property of acidity, 
but let a little water be added (but water is not acid) 
and immediately we have sulphuric acid, one of the most 
powerful acids known. Of what can chemical properties 
be conceived to arise in compounds which properties are 
not in their constituents ? From the mechanical arrange- 
ment of the constituents and their direction and velocity 
of motion, as they form the compound. They determine 
the properties of a thing. The riddles of physics, chem- 
istry, life and psychics, are reducible to mechanics. "The 
arrangements of atoms is of as much significance as 
either their proportions or their kinds," says an old 
chemist. The origin of life on our planet is a question 
of prime interest. And its first aspect presented is, is it 
eternal and co-extensive with matter? i. e., is matter liv- 
ing, a property as universal as its extent and gravitation, 
— or is life a natural local property of a specific chemical 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 13 

construction under a definite constituted environment, as 
it appears to be ? There are those who maintain that life 
is a property of matter, and as universal as matter. This 
requires evidence to be given of all inorganic matter as 
being alive. This is impossible to be done, except chem- 
ical choices and action and gravitation be ascribed to 
life, for which there is no reason. There is certainly a 
difference between a dead body and the same body that 
was before alive. The dead body disintegrates into the 
inorganic state from which chemistry had raised it, to the 
organic and endowed it with the property of life. There 
.are only a few of the 78 different kinds or atoms of mat- 
ter which are factors in the produced life and its prop- 
erties or functons, at most not more than twelve or four- 
teen. There are convincing evidences that the earth has 
been in such a state of heat that no life that is upon it 
now could possibly exist for no necessary chemical af- 
finity could take place. And there are azoic geological 
strata in which there are no remains of once living be- 
ings. This to be sure, is only a negative evidence of high- 
er forms of life, but none against the lowest forms. It is 
generally held that life began on our earth. Then is it a 
natural or supernatural phenomenon? There is no sci- 
entific ground or necessity to assume a supernatural. We 
know of no such existence, nor can we argue from it any 
consequence. We must put into it by pure assumption all 
we get out of it. We must therefore, hold that life is a 
property of a complex chemical combination of a few 
kinds or different atoms of matter, as it appeal's to be. 
Matter and its mechanics must solve the riddles of 
physics and chemistry and of life itself. 

Discussion 9. Organic chemistry, the complicated 
interrelations of the positions and motions of matter, that 
which issues in life, sensitivity and thought, directly and 
chiefly concerns four atomic elements of the 78, carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, with a recognition of 
sulphur and phosphorus, and a trace of a few other ele- 



14 THE ETEPvNITY OF MATTER 

merits. Organic and inorganic chemistry do not differ 
except in the greater complex mechanical interrelations 
of the matter involved in the former than in the latter, 
and a more restricted environment. Wherever these con- 
ditions obtain there is life. And life's properties, opera- 
tions and functions, are graded upward in awareness, 
distinct consciousness, power of refection and varied 
achievement in body and mind, as these material rela- 
tions are more involved among themselves. Organic chem- 
istry dissolves into inorganic, and life and its functions 
vanish, because the mechanics of its matter on which life 
and its functions depend are dissipated. Inorganic and 
organic chemistry do not differ except in the greater 
complexity of its mechanics and consequent functional 
products of the latter. For instance, in inorganic chem- 
istry a molecule of potash has two atoms; of carbonic 
acid three ; of ammonia four ; of sugar thirty-four. And 
as we approach the manifestation of life and mind as 
results of material combinations and motions of matter 
which in itself has neither life nor mind, the molecule is 
the sum of more atoms and these much more complicated 
in their structure. The molecule of albumen which is 
near the point of manifesting life, has nearly 900 atoms. 
And as yet the chemical structure of protoplasm, the 
material fabric which functionates all forms and degrees 
of life and intelligence, has not been precisely determin- 
ed. It was said some years ago to be the supreme prob- 
lem of physiological chemistry to determine the chem- 
ical nature of protoplasm. Albumen approaches the pro- 
toplasmic state and function, but probably has a less 
complex molecule. The amoeba, a bit of living proto- 
plasm, has spontaneous motion, takes in food and turns 
it into its own structure, grows and propagates its kind. 
It is without differentiated organs, and is almost as 
homogeneous as a drop of water. All its functions are 
performed equally well by all parts of the mass. That 
this lowly life has some degree of awareness, of feeling 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 15 

or consciousness and volition cannot well be denied. It 
may be killed, poisoned or starved, or by raising or low- 
ering the temperature beyond certain degrees. It has ir- 
ritability which is called the life of relation, or the ca- 
pacity of becoming affected by its environment and of 
responsive action. Life is the function of a local, chem- 
ically arranged and moving mass of matter; becomes 
alive by virtue of the matter, its arrangement, motions 
and environment. Becoming alive and ceasing to live 
are constantly going on in the body side by side as long 
as the body as a whole continues to live. Animal psycho- 
genesis no doubt, begins at the dawn of irritation al re- 
sponse, issues in sensation, which enlarged, differentiated 
and specialized in different parts, becomes human in all 
degrees of feeling and intelligence. Within the compass 
of matter and energy are involved all the doings and be- 
comings of the universe, since their nature and essence 
hold within themselves all possible happenings. A feel- 
ing of want, however dim and diffused it may be in a liv- 
ing organism, precedes the gratification of it not only, 
but is the source and cause of the means of its attain- 
ment in the production of specialized portions of the 
organism. This means as I take it, that the responsive 
effect of the environment upon the living protoplasm is 
a feeling and an aptitude to direct the nutritive process- 
es to the formation of specific organs adapted to the rea- 
lization of the created tendency. Heredity preserves the 
gain, but ages may be required for complete results. 
Nature not definitely to be specialized, seems first to cre- 
ate desires or tendencies, in living matter, and then pro- 
duces means for their realization. 

Discussion 10. Mind, wherever and in whatever de- 
gree manifested so far as mind can trace its origin, ap- 
pears to be as fully the created product of physics and 
chemistry which at bottom are but the results of the 
mechanics of one matter in definite positional relations 
and motions, as are all other properties and functional 



16 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

becomings of physics and chemistry. And ail life and 
mind are one at their start in that which distinguishes 
the living from the non-living, and originate in material 
mechanics, which are neither living nor mental, as all 
properties originate in one identical matter or substance. 
All mentation is upon one common ground of deed and 
result, from one common perception of nature, because 
one nature is in all, and actuates all, but in vastly differ- 
ent degrees and ways. "Sir Benjamin Brodie, after an 
exhaustive consideration of the facts, declared that the 
mind of animals is essentially the same as that of men. 
Every one familiar with the dog will admit that the ani- 
mal knows right from wrong, and is conscious when he 
has committed a fault." Du Bois Raymond remarks: 
"With awe and wonder must the student of Nature re- 
gard that microscopic molecule of nervous substance 
which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, loyal, 
dauntless soul of the ant." And Hubar says: "If you 
will watch a single ant at work, you can tell what he will 
next do. On a visit of an overseer ant; when the laborers 
had begun the roof too soon, he examined it and had it 
taken down, the wall raised to the proper height, and a 
new ceiling constructed with the fragments of the old 
one." Vegetative life even shows acts which, if seen in 
higher animal life, would be ascribed to conscious pur- 
pose. All living nature below the human and higher ani- 
mals, discovers acts and results which from analogy 
might be explained by infering local self-conscious activi- 
ties directed to a purposed end, were there not a broader, 
ground of definite acts and precise ends than volitional, 
which is neither cognitive nor conative, that is, acts and 
results from physical relations only. The whole domain 
of astronomy, physics, chemistry, meteorology, growth, 
death, decay, are intensely orderly and must be, because 
of their material causal relatons, Avithout disclosing the 
factor of intelligence. All the processes of inanimate 
nature and most of those of animate, take place without 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER. 17 

discoverable directive intelligence or purposed end. 
Where the psychological and teleological are manifest 
factors in the universe is comparatively a very small 
part, and confined to human and higher animal life. 
There must be in the inanimate the cause of the animate 
Life comes from the non-living, and is but a property, 
quality or function of some local, specific, chemical and 
physical relations of particles of matter. Life is a state 
of matter. This is manifest, since the animate state re- 
verts to the inanimate by the disjunction of the material 
relations which caused it. Besides, our dead food receiv- 
ed into our living bodies, digested and worked over by 
life's processes, which are but intricate chemical and 
physical, comes thereby to be living and takes the place 
of the once living particles of matter killed by living, 
that is, chemically disintegrated. The experiments of 
Pasteur and others, from which somebody has construct- 
ed the unauthorized formula of doctrine: All life from 
life is simply an example of dead matter received as food 
into the living body becomes alive. This and nothing 
more. The living body is a chemical laboratory where the 
living structure having prepared its successors, in the 
moment of dissolution at infinitesimal points, bequeaths 
as it were, its place and its life, to the matter that shall 
occupy its place and assume its functions. The animate 
•state, forms and functions of matter, appear no greater 
or more impossible for unconscious nature to effect, than 
many other chemical results where no consciousness or 
purpose is supposed. For instance, oxygen and hydrogen 
uniting in certain space and motive relations called 
chemical, lose their individual forms and functions and 
assume those of water, by virtue of their structure. The 
wonder would not be lessened by supposing intelligence 
as a factor in the change, but rather increased, for how 
intelligence could effect it is as inconceivable as how it 
could be effected without intelligence. What Pasteur and 
Ms colleagues did was purposely to kill all life in their 



18 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

decoctions and prevent all living germs from entering r 
then wait to see what would happen. When they suc- 
ceeded, nothing happened but the putrefaction of the 
contents of their test-tubes. When they did not succeed 
in destroying all life in their tubes, or did not prevent 
living germs from entering them from the air, the germs 
found food, ate, developed, multiplied, and converted 
the dead matter into living beings just as is done out of 
test-tubes. And their experiments had no more bearing 
on the question of how life originated on the earth, than 
what is constantly taking place in all the living world. 
It may be declared an empirical fact that life appertains; 
to only about one-seventh or one-sixth of the known 
chemical elements of matter, and is a property of a spe- 
cific chemistry of a few definitely constructed atoms. Ac- 
cording to the latest scientific view, all atoms are con- 
structions of one homogeneous matter in much mniuter 
division than the atoms. And atomic difference in nature 
and properties results from difference of construction of 
what differs only numerically. Therefore, for these two 
reasons life is not a property of matter PER SE. But 
like all other properties and functions of matter except 
extension and gravity, it results from definite construc- 
tions in space order, and motions in space and time or- 
ders. Therefore Haeekel is wrong in advocating hylozo- 
ism, defined as the doctrine that all matter is endowed 
with life, "which makes every smallest part of it to have 
life essentially belonging to it." There is a physical and 
philosophical necessity to hold that life on the earth be- 
gan in non-living matter by some natural but non-vitai 
causation. Because the dead world is immensely greater 
and more general than the living world, and no living- 
matter continues alive but comparatively a short time 
and reverts back to the inanimate state. And there are 
sufficient scientific reasons to hold that the whole solar 
system has been in that incandescent state, which would 
render impossible the physics, chemistry and physiology 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 19 

of living phenomena. And science knows nothing of a 
supernatural cause, or effect, or method ; nor can we con- 
ceive a supernatural; nor is a supernatural a necessary 
or self-evident truth. Supernatural is a word without 
intelligible meaning, and must remain so until the sum 
of the natural is fully apprehended and comprehended. 
Therefore all things that are and that become, are 
natural. 

Discussion 11. Matter gives no evidence of having 
begun to exist. From necessity of thought its beginning- 
to exist without cause, or self-caused, must be denied. 
From the nature of the case the scientific proof of the 
causal beginning to exist of matter is impossible. The al- 
legation of its beginning to exist is not necessary and is 
not self-evident. That there is eternal, substantive exist- 
ence or existence that never began to exist, and by 
consequence, can never cease to exist, is a necessary 
and self-evident truth. As an existence resting 
in thought and physically persistent in quantity 
in all changes, and as that which in space posi- 
tions by its motions changes in its properties and 
function, in now being alive and now not alive, and 
therefore the seat and ground of all phenomenal becom- 
ings, matter answers all the requirements of necessary 
postulated eternal self -existing, and we may say, there- 
fore self-phenomenating existence. So all ground for 
alleging the impossible feat of the creation or annihila- 
tion of the material universe or a grain of matter, is 
negatived. Nature or the universe, comprehensively, are 
matter, space and time. Its details are all changes of 
matter by its motions in related space positions, and con- 
sequent becomings and ceasings. Nature then, cannot be 
transcended in extent or content. Life, and all life means 
is but a state and function of matter, and has its com- 
plete cause in nature. Matter is the only substance, i. e., 
known to persist without change of quantity. Mind or 
mentality is not a substance, i. e., does not persist. There 



20 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

is no mind where there is no life. Life is as much a 
changeable state of matter, as the non-living from which 
it has come, and to which it will soon revert. All degrees 
of consciousness are causally traceable to functional 
activities of complex molecular structures of a material 
medium, which consciousness in no degree can be dis- 
covered in the separated elements of the said medium. 
This proves that life and mentality belong to a state and 
condition of matter, and not to matter itself. Life and 
mind are never known but as phenomena of chemically 
constructed matter. The analogy and prophecy of con- 
sciousness and intelligence by gradual approaches are 
seen in the use of properties in simple chemical combin- 
ations, no trace of which can be found in their separated 
elements. This seeming magical coming into being of a 
nature, a capacity, a function, in a synthesis that do not 
in any degree appertain to its analyzed constituents, are 
seen in inanimate matter, are seen advancing towards 
consciousness from the lowest to the highest vegetal 
species; recognized in the most inferior species of ani- 
mals ; becoming distinctly intelligence in the higher ani- 
mals, and has reached its highest maximum of reason and 
inference in the human. All advance is the result of 
growing complexity of the mechanical constructions and 
conditions of matter. The material constructions whose 
properties are life and intelligence are chemical and 
physical. And these are but more or less intricate me- 
chanics. So the mechanics of matter are sufficiently 
causal of all becomings and ceasings whatsoever. And 
man is the most materially complex, as he is the highest 
and most variedly phenomenal of all known objects. 
There is no known substance, i. e., persistent, to which 
properties, including life and intelligence belong, come 
and go, but matter and its physical changes. The argu- 
ment against these positions is the bald assertion : "Mat- 
ter and its physics cannot account for mind and menta- 
tion. " All needed reply to this assertion is: point out 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 21 

and verify some other substance whose specific state and 
condition is alive or not alive, feels, wills, chooses, knows, 
limited to numerical portions of small extent and of tem- 
porary continuance, then all these manifestations cease; 
but the substance which is their seat, remains intact in 
quantity and in full capacity for revivification and in- 
telligence. But question : would the consciousness of the 
old personality with memories, be restored? For evi- 
dence that matter is all that we claim for it, there is sci- 
entific evidence. But for the claim of an immaterial or 
spiritual substance that forever lives and spontaneously 
fe,els, knows and acts, (and this is the essential nature of 
man) there can be no satisfactory evidence of, but its 
personal experience, and this can be obtained only 
through death. 

Dismission 12. There is nothing more amazing for 
it is comprehensive of all that amazes and of the amazed. 
I mean that all difference in the phenomenal universe of 
whatever becomes and ceases, may be traced to changes 
in and issues from one material existence or stuff, ef- 
fected by and upon itself. Atomic differences of matter 
until quite recently, have been held to be so either eter- 
nally, or to have been so created, and atoms could not be 
resolved into constituent parts because they had none. 
Says Sir Isaac Newton: "It seems probable to me that 
God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, 
hard, impenetrable, movable particles of such sizes and 
figures and with such other properties and in such pro- 
portion to space as most to conduce to the end for which 
He formed them; and that these primitive particles be- 
ing solids are incomparably harder than any porous 
bodies compounded of them ; even so very hard as never 
to wear or break in pieces ; no ordinary poAver being able 
to divide what God himself made one in the first crea- 
tion. ' ' But the constituents and mutations of atoms have 
now become a demonstrated physical fact. And it is in 
evidence that these differences are differences of num- 



22 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

bers, constructions and motions of bits of one matter 
1,000 times smaller than the smallest known atom. These 
smallest known particles of matter are called corpuscles. 
Atoms disintegrate into corpuscles. And uniting again 
in a different structure, become a different kind of mat- 
ter. In all parts of the universe open to our observation 
and experience, construction and environment determine 
property and function. This is evolution, not creation. 
This denies an absolute beginning of substance, denies 
there is but one substance known, i. e., perdurable ex- 
istence, or that which is the subject of all change, but 
never a change in quantity, and affirms that it holds 
within itself all possible properties and functions. And 
from the concrete and psychic world around us as evi- 
dence without a contradiction, science has now found the 
same law operative in the undermost existence yet 
known. The atoms or chemical elements are all built up 
of corpuscles as it now seems, which "whatever be the 
source from which they are derived, whether the ordi- 
nary air, or from the hydrogen atom, carbonic acid, 
glowing metals, dull lead or gleaming gold, a candle 
flame, or burning gases, they are in motion at from 10,- 
000 to 90,000 miles a second. They seem one and all of 
the same nature and size, and so small that they readily 
penetrate all masses of matter, even a foot thick of solid 
iron. Not the least evidence of man's skill in searching 
out nature's hidden things and doings is, that the minute 
mass, the weight and the number in a given space and 
the speed at which they move, have been proximately de- 
termined of the corpuscles." How the corpuscles (Sir 
William Crookes' prophetic fourth state of matter) were 
discovered and by whom, their historic behavior and the 
implications which they suggest as to the universe of ex- 
istence and change, may be learned of books treating on 
the subject. The world of thought in chemistry and 
physics has been shocked, carried away from its moor- 
ings during the past ten or twelve years, comparable in 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 23 

its epochal effect to the once discovery of a new astrono- 
my, in that the sun and not the earth is the commanding 
center of our world system. Our physics determine our 
ethics, our psychics, our theism, and our place in nature. 
A radical heterogeneous element well authenticated as to 
its validity, entering our ultimate philosophy produces 
derangement and demands readjustment of the whole 
scheme. l ' Thou canst not stir a flower without troubling 
the stars. ' ' Such has been the effect of the discovery that 
the atoms are disintegrating into portions of matter 1,000 
times smaller than the smallest atom. The weights of the 
-chemical elements vary from 1 to 238. And the atoms 
may be arranged in groups with some property resem- 
blance, as their weights are near each other. When their 
relative weights began to be studied, it was thought that 
the heavier were exact multiples of the lightest, so that 
all the rest were compounds of the hydrogen atom. But 
this was found not to be true. For after dividing the 
weights of the other atoms by the unit weight of the 
Trydrogen atom, it was found that a remainder was left 
in many cases that could not be satisfactorily ascribed to 
^error in manipulation or calculation. But now that it 
is discovered that the hydrogen atom is a mass composed 
of nearly 1,000 smaller pieces, essentially all alike, it is 
probable that the weight of a corpuscle will exactly 
measure the weights of all the atoms. Indeed it must, if 
the corpuscle is the ultimate divisibility of matter, and 
not itself the assemblage of still smaller pieces; or as 
-some believe that matter is divisible without limit. But 
the sciences, especially chemistry, indicate that matter is 
divisible only to a limited extent, and ultimately exists 
in fixed separated quantities. There is a philosophical 
difficulty in conceiving that matter eternally self -existent 
should be in TO or more primary and unchangeable dif- 
ference. In which Herschel and others saw ultimate 
facts in atoms and their differences which indicated to 
them "manufactured articles." But eternal matter in 



24 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

one simple identical entity in numerical multiplicity 
loses its philosophical suggestion of manufactured arti- 
cles; especially in the light of the necessary logical and 
physical truth that, if there is anything but space and 
time, there must be eternal, uncreated and everlasting 
quantitative substance. The corpuscles in their present 
conception, suggest that the ultimate substance of the 
universe in its infinite difference of phenomenal forms, 
properties, qualities, states and functions, has been come 
upon, and that it is not infinitely divisible as some have 
supposed, but is fixedly limited to separated equal quan- 
tities, in one and the same form, with equal capacity and 
aptitude to become part of any construction that mani- 
fests any property or function under the same circum- 
stances. The manner of the building of atoms from cor- 
puscles and molecules from atoms, and masses from 
molecules, with the environment, determine properties, 
states and function and strongly indicate evolution in 
inorganic matter, and of necessity systematic order in 
the mechanical arrangement in the . structures to insure 
definite results as we see; advancing to greater and 
greater complexities from the simpler inorganic to the 
organic, vegetative, prostistic, animal and human, life 
and mind; realizing that from one identical substantive 
entity all differences proceed. This is the philosophic 
goal of all the sciences and of all philosophers. And it is 
worthy of remark as bearing especially on the develop- 
ment of my thesis, that in this latest, most fundamental 
and innermost insight as yet into the universe as one and 
all, intelligence and designed action to an end are neither 
discovered nor implied in the existence of matter or its 
persistent numerical divisions into forms all exactly 
alike in size, nature and aptitude to become part of any 
structure, property, or function. For regarding the uni- 
verse as the whole of all that is, intelligence and pur- 
posive action to an end, are comparatively late, rare, in- 
dividualized, temporary, phenomenal effects; then only 



THE, ETERNITY OF MATTER 25 

slight, partial, cause. Cause has no application to that 
which is and always has been. And the universe is the 
object of this conception and necessary affirmation. In 
this conception are three fundamental, non-interchange- 
able, non-erasable, differences, that intelligence cannot 
intelligently in any degree affirm itself to be the cause 
of, but must, if it avoid absurdity, affirm itself the effect 
of, viz: matter, space and time. From which all differ- 
ences are evolved, including life, intelligence, and pur- 
posive action to an end. Cause is involved in uncaused 
existence and its motions. I am aware of what Kant and 
idealists make of matter, space and time; nothing ob- 
jective, but wholly subjective. Things are not until 
thought. And then nothing but thought. Things must 
conform to our manner of thinking them, and not our 
thought must conform to their existence, and manner of 
existing. Then what is truth? As you think it. But 
never objectively real as it seems, even if you so think it. 
Intelligence through the senses has imposed a deceptive 
reality not only upon the whole human race, but upon all 
animals as well. For all act as if the external world were 
objectively real as it seems. But can we be sure that 
thought can bestow objective reality ? By what criterion ? 
And what is the value of the subject if there is no object 
according to our sense perception? It is difficult to see 
how thought can create or be aware of a self that thinks. 
For what a thing does must be different from that which 
does it. And I cannot clearly distinguish myself, that 
w T hich feels and thinks, from the feeling and thinking. 
Descartes says: I think, therefore I am. If his think- 
ing distinguished the I from the thought of it, the I must 
be objective to the thought. But as I venture to believe, 
not from clear consciousness of a self or thinker as dis- 
tinct from feeling and thinking, but as inference or im- 
plication from thinking and feeling. "Whereas we have 
clear and distinct consciousness of the objectivity of the 
external world through the senses. And the senses are 



26 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

viewed as caused by the impress of the external world 
upon living matter. Therefore the highest validity must 
be accorded to the external w^orld. And being causative 
of our sense organs, it must be also of their functions, 
our sensations. The external creates the internal. This 
relates to the unconscious world as cause of consciousness, 
feeling and thinking, without design or purpose of the 
end. If designer is supposed it must be accounted for. 
The universe must be intelligible to itself, and self -ex- 
plained, if it be explained. For it must involve, include, 
all that is to be explained, the explicator, and the ex- 
planation. The intelligence that deciphers its intelligi- 
bility must be part of itself. There is no beyond in any 
sense of the word beyond, or within the universe, that is 
not of it, that can be demonstrated to be so, or give a 
scientific reason of it. Whenever a thought is conceived 
that has no provable reality that the thought represents, 
whose existence, properties or capabilities are neither 
necessary assumptions, self-evident truths, or for which 
we have no scientific knowledge, and the inferences we 
draw r from it as if it were objectively true, or the con- 
crete facts w r e allege of it, are solely on the ground of 
our religious faith, that is, such as we invest it with, it 
cannot be a legitimate explanation of any objective 
thing. Such is all theism as explanatory of the universe. 
Here is no known objective entity or truth correspond- 
ing to the thought. 

Discussion 13. The universe is a systematic rela- 
tionship of differences. For whatever conforms to the 
relational orders of space and time must be, and all 
things do and must so conform. The universe then, is in- 
ter-explanatory. And as the primal necessary postulate 
or assumption is eternal uncreated existence and neither 
creator nor creation; and as neither creator nor crea- 
tion from nothing can possibly be proven, or be rendered 
possible to reason by any analogy or any need after the 
universe exists, and it is necessary to postulate existence 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 27 

and not creator or creation of existence. It follows then 
that the universe is the universal all. It is evident that 
things begin to be as they are from something different 
that preceded them and is their complete natural cause, 
and not from being created out of nothing. They come 
by change of form and evolution of property and func- 
tion simultaneous with, and in consequence of, the new 
form, the internal arrangement of parts, and environ- 
ment, all things causative and conditional being com- 
plete and sufficient. Motion is implied in any change 
whatever. Motion then is the universal mode of existing 
of matter, and no more imparted to it than was its crea- 
tion. Becomings that take place without intention, pur- 
pose or intelligent action as cause for doing so, compared 
to those that have these causes for doing so, are as in- 
finity of numbers to unity. Existence without beginning 
to exist, must forever continue without ceasing to exist. 
Matter and its necessary presuppositions, space and time, 
are the only quantitatively unchangeable objects of our 
experience or thought. If matter is the one and eternal 
substance, and motion and not rest its universal mode of 
existing, its motions and collisions, and change of forms, 
properties and functions, in unending ages, cannot wear 
or lessen its quantity or capacity to continue as it ever 
has. It is in proof that matter is everywhere and always 
in motion and neither less nor more than it ever has been. 
All things are mutable in forms, properties, qualities, 
functions, states or relations of some kind into other 
kinds. And all kinds of mutation are included in the 
orders of space and time, for they involve motion. And 
motion, mass and structure are embraced in mechanics. 
While the processes of change must be conceived as al- 
ways and everywhere going on, we are by scientific dis- 
covery and philosophic reasoning, constrained to hold 
that there is one eternal quantitative substance that takes 
all forms, and assumes all properties, etc., and not many 
unlike substances, or even two. Force or energy is not a 



28 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

substance, but the universal manner of existing of mat- 
ter in motion. The universe of matter and every part of 
it, from the needs of philosophic thought and the deter- 
minations of science, appears to be and ever to have been, 
in perpetual motion. And what is universal and eternal 
cannot be duplicated by creation, nor can the always ex- 
isted be annihilated. Motion of matter may take any di- 
rection or velocity in relation to other masses, molecules, 
atoms, or corpuscles, always determined by the nature 
of the case. There is said to be an absolute degree of 
cold, about 273 degrees Cen. lower than which there is 
no molecular heat-motion. This may be very likely as a 
mathematical deduction. But it may not be a physical 
fact. The genesis of forms in both the inorganic and the 
organic world, and especially of the properties and func- 
tions of the forms, when one substantive material is com- 
mon to all forms, is still a mystery of nature. How the 
two gases for instance, uniting (and why should they 
unite, and what is the manner of their union?) lose all 
their properties as gases except weight, which reveals 
the fact that the identity of substance and its quantity 
is preserved in becoming water, with new form, proper- 
ties and uses, are problems without successful workers, 
so far as I know. And the whole departments of chem- 
istry, vitality and psychics are involved in the problem, 
and its solution. But wood and other materials may be 
united into structures by various artisans, and take on 
properties and functions belonging to the forms, and 
there is no mystery about it, for it is so crass and open 
to inspection as to be understood. It seems as legitimate 
as any inference can be where the processes of cause 
into effect are beyond inspection, that chemical construc- 
tions of atoms of matter, under a definite physical en- 
vironment, all which are precisely exact in kind, num- 
ber, weight and measure, beyond manipulating intelli- 
gence to effect or adequately to appreciate, are the com- 
plete compliment of causative conditions for all results 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 29 

that follow, whether in the inanimate or animate world, 
without supposing previous designed end and a deliber- 
ate choice of means to reach it, as procuring factors. If 
we feel constrained to go so far because of evidence of 
purposed end and adaptive means to reach it, the de- 
mand is upon us to go further. What signified the in- 
finite multitudes of microscopic living beings, and para- 
sitic plants and animals, which if life is pleasurable to 
the animals it is equaled or exceeded in discomfort by 
others caused by their lives. And how estimate the value 
of any life, when the most exalted and advanced accord- 
ing to our standards, may be taken to satisfy and pro- 
long the life of micro-organisms of infectious and deadly 
diseases. And how shall we estimate the character of a 
being who had the power but under no compulsion to 
use it to effect such results, but should purpose and ex- 
ecute the tragedy; or if such results might occur natur- 
ally from the working of a general principle that had 
been created, if not specifically prevented, and it was 
not prevented but occurred, would the responsibility be 
less than if purposed and executed by deed ? Persons 
who believe in the creation of the universe and the voli- 
tional adaptedness of one thing to another as cause and 
effect, through a free primal choice to have them as they 
are and ever shall be, world without end, must hold that 
all events transpire when and where and as they have 
been predetermined. This may do as a view of inevitable 
necessity, because all things are involved in one eternal 
orderly connected system, but not produced by a creating 
and determining agency, either outside or inside the 
system but not of it. The universe or nature is evidently 
one interrelated whole. But there is no discoverable 
agency or need of its postulation outside or inside the 
universe, but not of it. There is nothing valuable or 
detrimental but sentiency, using the word for all degrees 
of physical and mental pleasure and pain. Experience 
and observation make known to us that probably the 



30 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

sum of suffering of the living world is equal to, if not 
greater than, the sum of positive enjoyment. And if 
this is purposed and brought about by some volitional 
creative agency, or is the result of blunder, does not 
deserved blame attach to the agency ? It would attach to 
human agency in the judgment of the most advanced 
and humane jurists. Proprietors of hazardous employ- 
ments are required to be responsible for the safety of 
their workmen. It is a universal feature of all animal 
and human life, that no life can be sustained but at the 
sacrifice of some other life. The conquest of life over 
life goes on, wherever there is life. And the life of no 
animal is surrendered without pain and unwillingness 
manifested by struggles to avoid death, or mute plead- 
ings that it is hoped no living being above man, if there 
is such, could endure the appeal to without immediately 
righting the universal wrong if he were able. But as 
this has never been done, and death is as universal as life 
and erases all advance, and if life is a created good, 
death is its full and complete cancellation. For of what 
consequence is it to me that I have lived when I am dead 
forever more, no matter how long I have lived. To have 
consciously, actively and joyously lived, can have no 
possible value when consciousness and memory are ex- 
tinguished, and in every sense we are as before we were. 
So we may righteously conclude that life is not a voli- 
tional gift of a loving Almighty father, possessed of in- 
finite knowledge and goodness without the opposite char- 
acters. But if life with all its disasters is functional 
property of eternal uncaused existence, and of necessity 
we must affirm such existence, and neither absolute cre- 
ation, nor creator, nor beginning, is a necessary aver- 
ment, or a discoverable fact, then no blame attaches any- 
where nor can be awarded. Man must help himself to 
all advantages nature puts in his way, and relieve him- 
self of all disadvantages, for that there are supernatural 
beings that he may effectively call upon in his need, are 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 31 

but illusory pictures in his imagination, not verifiable 
anywhere else, or more substantial or abiding. But it 
is what much of the world believes and trusts to in the 
future, but never finds it true to sense perception. Re- 
alization is put off and hope flattered. It never is, but 
always to be what you desire and expect. But the cause 
can never be shown to be what you call it. 

Is life the function of organization, or is organiza- 
tion the function of life? Or is life the universal prop- 
erty of matter as extension is, and matter the product of 
absolute creation? or is matter eternal and uncreated, 
.and the universe itself containing all the reasons of all 
its becomings and changes through the relations of com- 
plete casual antecedence and consequence? And it should 
be remembered that not one thing alone not further an- 
alyzable, is ever a complete cause, nor is one thing not 
further traceable, ever a complete consequence of cause. 
This is evidence that the universe is one systematic whole. 
That anything can be its own cause for beginning to 
exist, or can begin to exist without cause, are self -contra- 
dictory. Creation asserts the language of a process. 
But it is impossible to think that a process upon nothing 
could produce something. Creation presupposes time 
for the process, and space for its field of operation. We 
cannot suppose either of these conditions to be created 
or caused to be. They are necessary validities of eternal 
being, and are essential parts of the universe. The sub- 
stance or matter of which is eternal and ever enduring 
as are the validities space and time, if anything really 
exists. The phenomena of radiant matter have no other 
explanation than its attenuation and the mechanics of 
its positions and the forms, directions and velocities of 
its motions. These differences determine the dissimilari- 
ties of radiant forces from mass-forces, indeed all prop- 
erties and functions of matter. 

Discussion 14. There are convincing evidences that 
the solar system, then by almost necessary implication, 



32 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

the whole material universe, has been in a state of ex- 
tremest, dissipated attenuation, through the expulsive 
power of heat motion. This would have been incompat- 
ible with chemistry, physics and astronom3 T , and all life. 
The heterogeneity of material properties as now pre- 
sented were lost, but involved in its homogeneity; all 
differences in abeyance but the entity of matter and its 
mode of existing in motion. We say there are evidences 
that matter was once in a state where density by at- 
tractive coherence was not, and matter stood forth in the 
absolute nakedness of its single entity, where dispersion 
had reached its utmost limits. But universal gravitation 
the supremest wonder of all material properties in which 
are hidden the initiative of all affinities, inorganic and 
organic, the inexhaustible and unchangeable into any 
other mode, the mutual tendency of every particle of 
matter in the universe to approach and coalesce. And 
by the natural action of this relation of matter upon 
matter, the operations of the earth and celestial bodies 
are rendered intelligible. This universal interrelation 
of matter cannot be quantitively effected, does not re- 
quire time for its transmission. Then it was not trans- 
mitted, was not a property imposed upon matter, nor in- 
corporated within, is not extrinsic to, cannot be separated 
from but belongs as an eternal uncreated and universal 
nature of matter as mode of existing in extension is un- 
der the imposing order of space. It manifests the unity 
of one material entity definitely divisible. The law and 
measure of the action of gravitation have been discov- 
ered, but not its how or why. And it is hardly likely 
that a specific cause for it will ever be made out. As it 
seems probable that this universal relation is as much in- 
volved in its nature as its existing and extension in space. 
It is not pretended that it is known or can be proven 
that matter came into existence by creation, and has been 
distributed in space by intrinsic force upon it; or the 
atoms have been composed and distinctive natures given 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 33 

them that characterize the different kinds of matter as 
known in chemistry, physics and radio-activity. Sir 
William Crookes' fourth state of matter. G. H. Lewes 
says : ' ' We cannot conceive an individual without in the 
same act implying a class to which it belongs, and a larg- 
er class from which it is distinguished. ' ' The notion of a 
creative act with the knowledge of its objective fact issu- 
ing in existence, or a creating agency, cannot be form- 
ed. Nor is the creation of matter a necessary postulate, 
or its creation a conclusion of our experience or reason. 
For matter shows no marks of having begun to exist, or 
is in a state of decay and waning to extinction. And 
this is proof of its having always existed. For what 
always has existed must continue forever to exist. And 
eternal uncaused existence is both a necessary primal 
assumption and the conclusion of our reason. While the 
only persistent quantitative existent known, or we can 
conceive or have ground or need to affirm, is matter. 

Before men had developed the scientific conscious- 
ness and but feebly philosophized, creation and annihi- 
lation of matter seemed real and not difficult to accom- 
plish, and consistent with experience. It is only the 
latter part of the 19th century that there was established 
by scientific proofs the quantitative persistence of matter 
and energy, the mechanical equivalent of heat, and the 
mutual convertibility of the forces or energies, except 
the participation of the gravitative force, which gives to 
gravity a uniqueness of character and stamps definite- 
ness of quantity and unchangeable form upon it, which 
other forces — light, heat, electricity, galvanism and mag- 
netism, do not have. Life is living matter, a state, a 
ehemico-mechanical structure of metabolic moving parts. 
A primal sense intuition should and does generate the 
conviction of knowledge of objects. What the child is 
told he accepts readily and shows no disposition to ques- 
tion until deception has taught him better. His native 
tendency to know cause and to feel the emotion of won- 



34 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

der renders him a ready subject of religious sentiment,, 
which satisfies his yearning for cause and gratifies his 
wonder. If religion implies the conception of a being 
in whom man is bound to believe, and to whose worship 
he is obliged, and these attitudes are native and spon- 
taneous, they are as clear and distinct in the savage and 
barbarian as in the cultured. And polytheism is as con- 
vincingly true as monotheism. And the divine object rest- 
ing not in demonstration, or tested sense perception, but 
in the faith of somebody's construction, imagination and 
declaration, one object, visible or invisible, is as good as 
another, if it satisfy for cause and gratify the wonder. In 
his Primitive Culture, Edward Tylor says: "No savage 
tribe of monotheists, have ever been known. ' ' And poly- 
theism has been as satisfying to its devotees as monthe- 
ism to its ; and Mohammedanism and Brahmanism as 
Christianity. 

But the cultured imagination during the ages past r 
has constructed an abstract being and endowed the pro- 
duct with the language transcending nature, or the uni- 
verse of matter, motion, space and time, and of creating 
the same, and it has become a wide spread religious dog- 
ma. But it is not favored by science or a scientific phi- 
losophy. For a dogmatic creation, resting alone on 
somebody's say so, who, of course, could not know, can- 
not be an intelligible and final explanation about any- 
thing. For the assertion goes beyond the informant's 
knowledge. And the attempted exegesis suggests greater 
mystery to be explained than that for which the explana- 
tion was devised. Since we can have no conception of a 
creating agency of matter either transcending space and 
time, or within those orderly limits, and no suggestive 
illustration of how a world or a particle of matter could 
be created, or where such a being could be and produce 
material existence from non-existence, and no intelligible 
or verifiable proof that creative acts have ever been ex- 
ercised. To say that this being is omnipresent and there- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 35 

fore no visible presentation or adequate conception is 
possible, and still the being is declared to be a person- 
ality, is both to deny the unequivocal assertion of the 
claimed divine revelation and the human verifiers of the 
revelation. "The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, 
as a man speaketh unto his friend." "Then went up 
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the 
elders of Israel. And they SAW the God of Israel. ' ' It 
is true there are as distinct denials of the visible presence 
of the creator of worlds and builder of star-systems, as 
affirmations. John the Baptist is reported as saying : 
"No man hath seen God at any time." And it is further 
■true, that when these affirmations and denials were writ- 
ten, the astronomy of today was not dreamed of by those 
who made the writings or those who believed them. And 
notwithstanding after the worlds became visible through 
the telescopes, and mathematics had demonstrated the 
immense magnitude of the sun and stars, and their great 
distance from our earth, the earth's revolution on its 
axis as the reason of day and night, and its passage 
round the sun completing the seasons, these natural 
things were rejected and contested by the advocates of a 
claimed divine revelation. And many today who know 
the falsity of these writings still profess to believe them, 
and express surprise when one hints at the falsehood of 
these writings : ' ' What, don 't you believe the Bible ! ' ' 

There are presented in many affirmations of the Old 
Testament, the visible and audible appearance of a hu- 
man-like being declared to be the God of the Hebrews, 
The sun's rays would evidently have photographed such 
a physiognomy. But the Christian God of to-day is very 
different from the Hebrew God of the Pentateuch. These 
can only be shown to be one and the same by theological 
thaumaturgy. Is not this metamorphosis ceasing to be 
man-like and become omnipresent a virtual rejection of 
an objective linguistic revelation, and the developing 
race outgrowing the drivelling of its infancy ? If God is 



36 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

identified with nature or the universe, creator and crea- 
tion of the universe is abandoned. For self -creation is 
self-contradictory. We cannot get rid of the universe. 
It confronts our senses and experience every moment. 
"We have no*need of two expressions so opposed as cre- 
ator and created, when we can no longer aver creation, 
and it cannot be realized in thought. Not that every 
proposition that transcends thought-experience is to be 
rejected as absurd or untrue as objective fact. The non- 
limitation of space, the non-beginning and non-ending 
of time are necessary truths, that we can never construe 
in appreciative thought. And their contraries are as nec- 
essarily false. 

It is admitted by cultured intelligence that no ade- 
quate mental picture of a being characterized by the at- 
tributes ascribed to the Christian God is possible. Sir 
William Hamilton, a Christian advocate, says: "To be- 
lieve that God is as we can think him to be is blasphemy. ' ' 
Query: When we pray, is our petition addressed to an 
idea or mental picture? If our thought is not a copy of 
God's character as it truly is, in what sense do we ad- 
dress and worship the true God? If a thought-picture 
of God as he is, is impossible, how is such worship less 
idolatry than worship of a visible picture? Then he has 
not been truly revealed, for he could not be. Are our 
prayers more than our thoughts or expressed desires, and 
our sentiments more than a matter of feeling and word- 
framing? But how can we picture to ourselves a per- 
sonality as omnipresent, whole and entire in every point 
of space, but does not occupy space, is separate from 
every particle of matter. And what warrant have we 
that such a being exists, or we need to affirm or believe 
there is, or such a being could or did create the material 
universe, or that it was created, or began to exist. There 
is no proof of it, but the declaration of somebody who 
did not know. The proof of this negative is not upon its 
asserter, but the burden lies upon the affirmative. It can- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 37 

not be proven by the allegation found in a book, on the 
pretense that it is a divine revelation, resting on the tes- 
timony of some persons that the allegation is made by 
God either direct, or that God authorized a prophet to 
make the record in the book. For the antecedent prob- 
ability is infinity to one that such human testimony is 
false rather than true. All causes and effects appreciable 
and provable are natural. There is no appreciable proof 
of a supernatural, except by the exclusion of the natural 
by the complete knowledge of all its actualities and pos- 
sibilities. Nor is the supernatural a necessary and in- 
evitable postulate. That the natural is not the universal 
all; that the material universe is a created thing from 
non-exisence, are arbitrary and needless assumptions in- 
capable of adequate proof. And by consequence the uni- 
verse is the eternal uncaused, self-ongoing existence that 
must be the primal postulate. And such first assumption 
is inevitable. And this negatives all need and all proof 
of creation. All life is an experience and verification of 
the reality and sufficiency of nature to be all and do all. 
A being wholly unknown and inconceivable, whom no 
man has seen nor can see, a fiction of the infancy of the 
race of unknown aeons ago, and for most of this past 
time, and for most of humanity, Gods, one or more, have 
been the universal enlightenment of all human ignor- 
ance. But no record of a fiction can be authenticated 
by any number of repeated records, by any number of 
believers, or any length of time believed. But now by 
the best informed and least superstitious, the creation of 
the universe or the interference of a divine being in 
nature is never proposed as explanation of any thing. 
For it is a verbiage that evidently cannot explain any 
mystery, nor are we made wiser by being told God did 
it. 

And it seems inconsistent and a marvel, if there is 
an omniscient personality who is also the loving father 
of mankind, that he should sweep off hundreds of 



38 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

thousands of his people by tidal waves, earthquakes and 
epidemics, when notice of coming events would enable 
the now doomed to escape. But human life appears no 
more sacred or more endeared to the maker of all, than 
the most insignificant insect life. This world appears 
very remote from being governed by moral laws, not- 
withstanding the preachers tell us it is. Heaven is as 
silent from rebuking wrong, as from rewarding virtue. 
The superstitious, however, give large credits to provi- 
dence. But this determines nothing. 

Discussion 15. Man has discovered by his devel- 
oped intellect that, if anything exists, and that there 
does, his senses assure him beyond doubt, there must be 
existing that which is eternal and uncaused. And that 
existence is infinitely more likely to be the existence of 
which all is composed, of which we know something, and 
has been determined to be in quantity forever persistent, 
since what exists without beginning to be, must exist 
without ceasing to be; and not existence of which we 
know nothing and is not thinkable. Eternal and un- 
caused existence is the necessary and universal primary 
postulate, and not creation nor creator of existence. 

In my denial of the supernatural and affirmation 
that nature or the universe is the sum total of all there 
is, I do not argue against the possibility that human con- 
scious personality may continue after the death of the 
body, although I do not argue for it, for I do not know 
any reason for it or any possibility of it. On the eternal 
permanency of matter in the past and the future is our 
hope, not that it was made from nothing, and we are to 
continue life through divine grace. If some of the mat- 
ter of our body which is animated and intellectualized 
may undergo a higher development and capacity as does 
the germ-seed in uterine development, and escapes at 
death, and is the significance of natural death, as matter 
vitalized by its relations for indefinite continuance and 
capacitated for indefinite progress, as some seem to 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 39 

think, my views do not antagonize. What is done, nature 
does, and cannot but do under the circumstances. Suns 
and planets are perpetuated in the aggregations of mat- 
ter in aptness, to initiate and minister to immense differ- 
ence of lives in succession and continues for unnumbered 
ages. The secret of life will be discovered some time, how 
to initiate it and how to continue it. 

If the universe cannot be the uncaused existence 
which must be granted as a necessary first truth, because 
of its greatness, grandeur, multiplicity and complexity, 
and everlasting, self -ongoing in undiminished power, as 
planned and executed by a master mechanic, how can a 
greater impossibility become actualized in our assent. 
Should we seriously put to ourselves the question of the 
bringing into existence from non-existence the material 
universe, and the mutual relation of things? For surely 
the being declared to be the creator must be supposed to 
surpass all reasons urged why the universe cannot be the 
existence that must be eternal and uncreated. And how 
can he be eternal and uncreated, and in addition create 
the universe? It is very plain that there is no ground 
for its belief or propagation as a dogma, but arbitrary 
human assertion. The universe is the eternal uncaused 
existence which becomes the primal postulate, for we 
know no other existence. And there can be no demand 
for an unknown existence to create existence that every- 
body knows. Man cannot be praised for the progress he 
has made in the knowledge of nature about him. This 
may be said in his favor, he has all things to learn for 
himself, and at his death all is lost to the world. His 
children may inherit his house and money, but not his 
intelligence. Several millions is quite an aggregate of 
years. But his imagination is a break upon his progress. 
He has allowed the wild to lead him. He has ever been 
expecting somebody coming out of the bushes to tell him 
something. The great families of mankind have what 
they call messages of the Gods to them, telling them 



40 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

about the world yet to occur. But Gods do not agree any 
more than men do. There is no stronger antagonism. One 
is reported to have commanded his followers: "Thou 
shalt have no other Gods before me." And in centuries; 
where there is but one left, one serves all the purposes 
that many did. This appears to be for faith and rituaL 
It has now been about 1900 years since all the adherents, 
of the Great Jewish Jehovah agreed among themselves 
that their God has sent a message, or let himself be 
heard from. 

"1650-4, Archbishop Ussher proposed a scheme of 
biblical chronology, which was universally accepted un- 
til disproved by recent investigation. ' ' According to his- 
interpretation of the divine record, not yet 6000 years 
have come and gone since the world of matter left the 
creative hands of its maker. Nothing satisfactory can 
be made out of the Old Testament chronology. These 
writings were penned by a people who knew not the 
value of exact truth, nor how to obtain it; by a people 
who thought themselves to have access to the maker of 
events as well as of the world. But they as utterly fooled 
themselves and many more besides their clan. Men who* 
have thought they spake by divine inspiration have al- 
ways been self -deceived. All we know about theism 
claims to come to us by divine revelation. But all Gods 
being human made, their truth takes no higher authority 
than its source. Every theistic system disclaims e very- 
system but its own as false. This is the universal con- 
viction. When every person puts one more theistic sys- 
tem upon the black list than he does, the truth will be 
equally told about all. Plain promises reported as made 
by Jesus have been centuries due. For instance, "This 
generation shall not pass, till all these things be ful- 
filled. " How many zealous persons during 1900 years 
past have thought they have found a clue among the 
claimed prophecies, and have set a time for Jesus to ap- 
pear in the clouds of heaven. But evidently Jesus knew 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 41 

no more about his appearing in the clouds after his 
death, than any one now knows of his own so appearing. 
That he ever said so, may well be doubted. What he 
would have put in writing in his own behalf had he 
thought he knew anything worthy of being recorded, no 
one knows. But he is evidently as much a made-up, un- 
historieal life, by one class of men, as he was robbed of 
his life by another class of men, in contest about their 
theism. Other promises proclaimed made by the same 
God, "Ask and ye shall receive." "If ye shall ask me 
anything in my name, I will do it." How many mothers 
have asked Jesus in his name, to save their darling babes 
'from the touch of death; and how many persons starving 
for food, freezing with cold, dying with sickness, have 
prayed Jesus for relief according to his promise. But 
their calamities came all the same as if they had not com- 
plied with his request. There was no more the God Jesus 
to hear and save them than the God Zeus or Apollo. A 
prayer to one God is just as efficacious as to another. 
The Gods of every religion are healers to their devotees. 
For there are states of body and mind in which strong 
faith in anything as cure, the change made by assurance 
of recovery is remedial. 

Human nature has strong perverse, discordant ten- 
dencies, when perfect liberty of discussion and action is 
allowed. But the race has segregated themselves into 
large groups or nations, in instances, perhaps, sprung 
from a single pair, and for many generations with little 
or no influx of foreign blood. The same nations are 
standards for morals, for religion, for social conduct, for 
business, for fashons of buildings, dress and food. Under 
these circumstances there is no provocation to radical 
discussion. It would not be allowed by the popular will. 
Arbitrary governments whether headed by king or 
priest, are favorable to the device and authoritative es- 
tablishment of systems of religions, which become part 
of the civil government. All the great religions of the 



42 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

world have been gotten up and propagated and defended 
by arbitrary authority and brute force. To the religious 
devotee nothing is so sacred and securely true as his no- 
tions about Gods and religions, whether fetichistic, poly- 
theistic or monotheistic. But in truth there is no other 
subject whether true or false, about which something 
more satisfactory may not be learned. Nature whose 
product we are, whose methods are most directly and 
with highest degree of certainty true through the intui- 
tions of the senses. But senses have no common nature 
with Gods. They, one or more, are not objects of our 
senses, but of our imaginary speculations with no 
fixed positive, formal standard. But if he is some- 
thing to be distinguished from nothing and from 
everything, must he not be of some definite form? 
Does to be everywhere, almighty and all-knowing im- 
ply anything definite? Is it not a negation upon 
all definite meaning? But every standard forming 
something proposed for God, is immediately rejected 
by the proposer, unless he be too simple to realize 
the absurdity of his proposition. But this has occurred 
especially among the Semites. But the world will never 
know how little or how much Jesus himself did or said 
to create the eclat of the divine that has clung to his 
name for 1900 years. But a people who had foisted up- 
on its tribes and some of the brightest portion of the 
world besides, not Jews, the fictions of the Old Testament 
can hardly be trusted for either intelligence or historical 
honesty. 

Discussion 16. The Rev. Frederick Temple, D. D., 
Bishop of Exeter, in an Essay entitled "Religion 
and the Doctrine of Evolution," as reported in 
the Popular Science Monthly of December, 1884, 
says : ' * Science in its character of science, can 
never admit that a miracle has ever happened." And 
the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, as reported in the Popular 
Science Monthly of May, 1880, quotes approvingly an- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 43 

other clergyman as saying: "It seems to me that we want 
a new word to express the fact that all physical science 
properly so called, is compelled by its very nature to 
take no account of God. If I might coin a word, I 
should say that science is atheous, not atheistic." And 
Cardinal Newman, it is claimed, said: "It is a great 
question whether atheism is not as consistent philo- 
sophically with the phenomena of the world, taken by 
themselves, as the doctrine of a Supreme thinking will. ' ' 
It would certainly seem legitimate and within the do- 
main of science to inquire how the subject-matter of all 
science, the material space and time universe, and the 
laws of order governing all existence and becomings, 
came to be. And I can conceive of only two answers 
possible to this question : either the universe is eternal 
and uncaused, and the full reason of all that becomes 
and ceases is within itself ; or : the universe is not eternal 
but had a cause and a beginning, and the full reason of 
its being and laws of its orders and its becomings are in 
another. And the discussion of this question must be 
included in the meaning of science ; and the conclusion 
either atheism or theism, allowing the word God to stand 
for what is meant by creator or cause of the existence 
of the universe. Nor does it follow that he who philo- 
sophically argues for the eternity of the universe and 
that all changes therein have their full reasons in the 
universe itself, is a self derelict from morality, sociality 
and good citizenship. 

Discussion 17. Fetichism is the first step in all re- 
ligions. It is also the most characteristic feature in all 
stages of their development, not less, though in under- 
tone in the most advanced than in the first. It is the 
initiative also of science and philosophy, the universal 
potency of dawning intelligence seeking a cause. "A 
fetich is anything to which a magical power is ascribed. 
Magic is a general name for wonderful effects produced 
in some mysterious way." Can there be anything more 



44 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

magical or mysterious than the creation of matter from 
nothing? "God created the heaven and the earth. God 
said Let there be light and there was light. ' ' All things 
were made of nothing, says Tertullian. God made all 
things out of nothing, says Theophilus. Matter is not 
without beginning, says Tatian. These are Ante-Nicene 
Fathers. The essence of religion is the emotion of won- 
der, awe and worship, towards a supposed human-like 
being, able to do all things, and disposed to punish or 
reward us for the evil or good we do, excited in us by 
the mysterious. To the alleged cause there is ascribed 
competency to the production of anything which our in- 
telligence knows to be or to exist, or our inventive fancy 
makes needful for us to believe, even the creation of sev- 
enty or eighty different kinds of matter out of nothing. 
God is able to do it; nothing is impossible with God; 
which assertion is neither self-evident, nor the necessary 
inference from any known indisputable or verifiable da- 
ta. "What we understand casually and in its working 
effects, we do not worship nor ascribe to God. The pro- 
curing cause of theistic religions is our ignorance and 
our wants. No satisfactory reason could be given to the 
intelligence of today for the religious worship of Jesus 
of Nazareth on account of his great and good humanities. 
And this was seen in the earliest subapostolic times, 
and a deific nature was ascribed to him. And to secure 
this as the leading dogmatic feature actuated all the New 
Testament writers. And without the dogma of the di- 
vinity of Jesus, all he really said and did would have 
been and would be no more to the world than the life 
and sayings and martyrdom of Socrates. The vivid and 
satisfactory feeling essential to identify a cause is the 
sensuous or intellectual understanding of a definite 
agency, the means used, how turned into effect and per- 
haps, why, God or Gods which the great majority of the 
human race individualize, personify and endow with life 
and power, is or are the preimplications of religious wor- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 45 

ship. But they are in the first place impossible of dem- 
onstration ; nor are they axiomatic verities, or even prob- 
able from anything we actually know; and the proba- 
bility is becoming less the better our scientific acquaint- 
ance with nature. All secondary causation it is scientif- 
ically and philosophically evident is natural. And the 
primal and necessary assumption is eternal and uncaus- 
ed existence. Then the assumption of creation and a 
creator, or the supernatural, is illegitimate and illogical, 
and cannot be proven as a fact. We know not and can- 
not conceive any existence that is not included or can be 
excluded from nature or the universe; therefore these 
'terms express the primal and necessary postulate or the 
universal all. 

Cicero says: "They who diligently peruse, read or 
practice over again all the duties relating to the worship 
of the Gods, are called religious." The only difference 
between religion and superstition, is an intenser degree 
of religion. For Cicero further says: "They who pray 
whole days that their children might survive them, are 
called superstitious. ' ' Religion expresses a psychological 
state, perhaps of universal extent to the normally con- 
stituted human mind, the result of practical life. Suffer- 
ing, destitution and ungratified desires bring to con- 
sciousness our dependence. And our acquaintance with 
the world informs us that some have what we want, and 
have not what we desire to be rid of. And these differ- 
ences suggest to us that the remedies which are not 
in ourselves are in others. And the means of obtain- 
ing both our relief and the bestowment of our desires is 
by asking a certain inward state and outward conduct, 
to teach which and to make formal and emphatic, is the 
profession of some, and is called prayer. Religion as 
comprehensive of certain psychological states, the ab- 
sence of certain outward deeds and the doing of others, 
is not always and everywhere theistic, that is, directed 
towards an individualized and personal God. It is not 



46 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

so to the pantheist. Says a distinguished author : ' ' Man 
knows too little of principles. Man sees the motions of 
planetary bodies ; sees life on earth ; sees wonders every- 
where and asks: Where does the Power come from 
which pervades all and moves in all ? If a man would ex- 
amine the laivs of realities, he would soon find that Mat- 
ter contains all Tower as well as all Forms. He would 
soon find that Matter, when centralized or organized, 
contains form ; and when attentuated, contains force. All 
Matter has these two capacities. The last word of science 
is that the constant element, the vitality of Matter is 
force. What science calls force, philosophy calls cause, 
and religion calls God ; and God is potentially and 
actively present in every atom of matter, every bead of 
dew, in the pencils of light that paint the spring land- 
scape with inimitable beauty, and the fragrance that 
exhales from flower and shrub. All Matter has two con- 
ditions; one when it is reduced to form; the other when 
attentuated to the evolution of force." 

An author, very comprehensive and particular in 
his learning, remarks that " There is a large world of un- 
profitable controversy based on the untenable belief that 
there is an essential difference between God-life and the 
life of Nature. We can discern no substantial reason for 
such distinction. It is seen that our bodily organs per- 
form certain functions, and metaphysicians, philoso- 
phers, and Christians, have attributed these operations 
to the constant presence of a physiological law, which is 
never regarded as divine as a moral principle. Learned 
men are accustomed to speak lightly and irreverently of 
Attraction, Repulsion, the Chemical Law, Mechanics, 
etc., as though such laws are not the very life, and laws 
of Deity, as they are. It is not believed that moral laws 
are inherent and constitutional with matter and mind. 
There is no difference in the quality of the divine spirit, 
whether in stones or stars ; that the same supernal Mind 
lives in mechanics as in morals, in body as in soul, in 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 47 

matter as in mind, differing only and merely in the 
quantity, extent and degree of its manifestations. It can- 
not be said in philosophic language, that Nature is the 
medium for the manifestation of God." This statement 
implies that there was a time when the physical universe 
did not exist ; that once there was nothing but God ; that 
he called the medium, Nature, out of nothing into ex- 
istence. This doctrine is not taught by anything in the 
universe. To revert rather disconnectedly, to be sure, 
with what has immediately gone before to the unsatis- 
factory regressive tracting of the history of the Old Tes- 
tament to any definite meaning in which we may reason- 
ably have faith as a real objective divine utterance, as 
theism teaches, mandatory upon our acceptance under 
threats of penalties, is consonant with the affirmative de ; 
velopment of my theme, the Eternity of Matter. Says 
the New American Cyclopaedia, first edition, Article 
Bible: "For a period of not less than 1,000 years, learn- 
ed men have been engaged in selecting, authenticating 
and arrange in one volume the constituent portions of 
the Bible. The history of this undertaking which is the 
history of the canon of the Old and New Testaments, 
will be found in its appropriate place. But the labor 
that has been spent upon this department of study, is as 
nothing compared with that which has been bestowed 
upon the correction and establishment of the Scripture 
text. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament, as we have 
it, presents these ancient writings after having been 
passed through many hands, and subjected to many re- 
visions. Of the primitive text, in fact, of its condition 
previous to the formation of the canon, 175 B. C, there 
exists little information of a positive kind." 

Dismission 18. These writings w r ere realty in ci- 
pher. "There were no vowel characters; the words were 
composed of consonants, the vowel sounds being supplied 
by the usage of the living speech. ' ' That is, all meaning- 
had to be put into the writings by the reader before any 



48 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

could be gotten out of them. The writings expressed 
nothing definitely. The consonants could be so divided 
by voice utterance as to make different sense, justifying 
Professor Huxley in his contention with Hon. W. E. 
Gladstone, as to the Bible order of creation. "That, if 
the word in the original Hebrew translated "fowl," 
should really after all mean "cockroach", he would not 
be surprised he had great faith in the elasticity of that 
tongue in the hands of biblical exegets. " " Hebrew, with 
its vowel-less roots, requires vocalization before attain- 
ing any meaning." Century Dictionary. 

The oral teacher was supposed to hold in his mem- 
ory the meaning of the Old Testament, just as he had re- 
ceived it from his oral teacher without change of word 
or interpretation, regressively to Moses, or whoever 
wrote the original, with only the help of consonants, a 
kind of mnemonics. They had to understand these writ- 
ings in order to read them; we read our writings in or- 
der to understand them. We are at liberty to believe 
there were no differences in the order in which the con- 
sonants were placed in different copies, or vowel sounds 
which were supplied out of the memory of the reader, 
among the consonants, no lapses in memory, and no pur- 
posed change of words, and this because there was per- 
fect agreement among observers of what had occurred, 
and among all of what was desired. But we shall find 
when we come to speak of the Massora, there were vast 
divergences. To believe there were no purposed or un- 
purposed changes through all the successive copyists and 
oral teachers from Moses down to the time the vowel 
points came into use, which is a matter of non-agree- 
ment, covering the time from Ezra who lived in the 5th 
Century B. C. to the 11th Century A. D., is perhaps a 
religious need to keep intact the divine revelation. But 
outside the divine Scriptures, whatever other writings 
the Hebrews have made, they have not gained even 
among Christians the universal consensus of being either 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 49 

critical or honest. Dean Prideaux, D. D., in his "Con- 
nections" remarks: "In historical matters, it is not to 
be regarded what the Jews write, or what they omit con- 
cerning them, (the vowel points.) Of all nations in the 
world, that have pretended to any sort of learning, they 
have taken the least care to record past transactions, and 
have done it very bunglingly, and In a manner that 
looks more like fable than truth. ' ' That the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the records of a people of whom such a testimony 
is given by one who accepts said Scriptures as the word 
of God, a people without a country, although, if we re- 
.eeive their word, a country had been given them by one 
who owns all countries, with the command to the re- 
cipients to exterminate its inhabitants that this favored 
race might take it and all its improvements, a people so 
peculiar in thought and conduct as to maintain its ethos 
millennium after millennium and so obnoxious to every 
other people as to be driven from the country that would 
not longer tolerate them, to another that did not welcome 
them; that the Holy Scriptures, we say, that we have 
been taught to believe are the very verbiage of God, 
should come without historical, divine, prophetic, word 
or alphabetic error, through such a race is of all moral 
wonders the most wonderful. But theology being not of 
nature but supernatural, it may be argued that the race- 
peculiarities of the lineal descendents of Abraham, "the 
called" and divinely made the father of this race, are 
good for divine veracity, but not for human, and are 
strong evidence in favor of their contention and ground 
for our faith, that they were set apart for the service of 
theology and religion; that "God's ways are not as our 
ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts." It is strange 
how many proven charges are made against the preserv- 
ed original integrity of the Old Testament, and against 
the careless and purposed changes in the text by copyists, 
and even its entire restitution when lost, and still its 
character of a divine revelation remains unimpaired. 



50 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Eusebius, called the Father of Church history, has re- 
corded that during the seventy years captivity, the 
Scriptures were destroyed, and that God inspired Esdras 
the priest, to compose anew all the discourses of the an- 
cient prophets, and to restore to the people the laws 
given by Moses. The Schaff-Herzog remarks: " Tradi- 
tion, which is rich in the details of Ezra's life, says that 
he restored the entire Pentateuch which had been lost, 
either by memory or special inspiration." In Oort and 
Hooykaas' Bible for Learners, Vol. I, it is said: "In 
hundreds of places in the Bible the transcribers of the 
Hebrew manuscripts have besn guilty of the grossest 
blunders, and it is utterly impossible to make any sense 
of what they have written. Sometimes the old Jewish 
scholars have purposely altered the text." We read in 
"The Old Testament in the Jewish Church," by Prof. 
W. Robertson Smith, page 106, "From our point of view 
a book is the property of the author. You may buy a 
copy of it, but you do not thereby acquire a literary 
property in the work, or right to tamper with the style 
and alter the words of the author even to make his sense 
more distinct. But this idea was too subtle for those 
times. The man who had bought or copied a book held 
it to be his own for every purpose. If he could make it 
more convenient for use by adding a note here, putting 
in a word there, or incorporating additional matter de- 
rived from another source, he had no hesitation in doing 
so. ' ' The author further says on page 8 : " Difficulties 
are not confined to a few corners of the Bible. They run 
through the whole volume, and force themselves on the 
attention of every one who desires to understand any 
book of the Bible as a whole." 

Discussion 19. The philosophic view of religions 
is that they are developments of man 's native propensity 
to seek a cause of himself and all that he distinguishes as 
not himself. The child's view of everything he beholds 
is that somebody made it. What is now true of every 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 51 

child was true of the childhood of the race. And in re- 
gard of what we are now writing, childhood is not al- 
ways outgrown by adding years to life. The child is 
early taught that God made him and all things, and this 
is constantly reiterated from the pulpit. And he grows 
up in the persuasion that God as cause is behind every 
phenomenon either immediately or remotely. Hence all 
cause merges in conscious personality, possessed of all 
power, wisdom and goodness. Then towards these per- 
sonalities or this personality, through the advocacy of 
teachers, be begins to be touched with emotions of fear, 
love and worship. These sentiments together with some 
external observances, are religion. And I take it that all 
religions no matter by what name called, whether idol- 
atry, polytheism, monotheism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, 
Mohammedanism, or Christianity, create emotions alike 
in kind, and differing in degree agreeable to individual 
temperament and readiness to become enthused, since it 
is rare that a devotee of one theology becomes a convert 
to another radically different. And I may add, it is sel- 
dom that a person who escapes embracing any religion 
during childhood and youth, and becomes a student in 
natural science ever in adult life becomes a convert to "a 
declared revealed religion. The cast of mind induced by 
the study of the exact sciences is incompatible with re- 
ligious faith and sentiments, resting as these do on no 
verifiable scientific proofs of the religious or supernatur- 
al objective. Some scientific men are religious, but they 
became religious before they were scientific. 

The propensity or instinct of man to seek a cause 
has a scientific as well as religious aspect, in which uni- 
versal as well as ultimate causation is not viewed as per- 
sonal. Conscious purposive causation is always second- 
ary, phenomenal and temporary, never primary, creative 
of substantive or perpetuating of results. The preserva- 
tion of the Pyramids owes nothing to purposive causa- 
tion. In the great majority of animate activities no con- 



52 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

scious intent can be traced. In the whole vegetable king- 
dom in the building up of complex forms of exquisite 
beauty, coloring and fragrance, no conscious architect 
is discoverable. But the doing and the results present 
the features of intelligence. And the chemistry of its 
material protoplasmic mechanics has originated the prop- 
erty of life in non-living mineral nature, which becomes 
the food material of all orders of the animal world. We 
must accord to nature modes of doing things with mathe- 
matical exactness both in the infinitesimal and the celes- 
tial fields, independent of conscious purpose. Neverthe- 
less, all nature's operations are intelligible. The little 
that nature is self-conscious and intelligent, this little 
is representative of all. All intelligent nature is intelli- 
gent along the same lines so far as they extend. We may 
well believe there is but one fundamental psychic or 
consciousness, whether animal or human. The most in- 
significant animal has a psychical experience that the 
human as human cannot conceive, as truly as the hu- 
man transcends the merest animal. But reasonably 
there are differences under one and the same order. Na- 
ture is everywhere intelligible, because she is everywhere 
orderly. Intelligence with definite design as to end and 
means with power to execute is very limited, in reason 
not extending beyond the animate, and may well be de- 
nied to vegetable life. We cannot accept the theory of 
hylozoism, nor is it needful to the exposition of nature. 
The mechanics of gravitation, of motion and of space 
and time, — eternal and uncreated verities, solve the 
problem of universal order. Consciousness, as the func- 
tion or property of certain material inter-relations, 
awakes to perceive this order and of necessity follows it 
in all changes it is able to effect. By the operations of 
the verities or laws of nature undevised and unordained 
by what we know as mind or executive conscious pur- 
pose, since nature or the universe is not the product or 
outcome of mind or intelligence; for mind is a part and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 53 

a small part of phenomenal nature. Observe the sym- 
metry and order of vegetative and animal growth and 
development, the associated relations of parts, reaching 
an end of typical form and functional issue as if pur- 
posed in final cause and every step directed by intelli- 
gence. But no intelligence as a factor in the produced 
results can be shown to be involved. The intelligibility 
of nature as a feature incorporated in the universe by 
an intelligent personality, and there as a mark showing 
the universe to be manufactured articles arranged into 
a system by the manufacturer, seems a little surprising 
in a man of Herschel's philosophic tendency, and of ap- 
proval by a man of Clerk Maxwell's scientific attain- 
ments as we shall see further on. But how did the sub- 
stantive quantity of the universe that makes up all its 
adjusted and systematized parts, come to be? The fore- 
most educators said, by absolute creation by an infinite, 
immaterial personality. This verbiage answers the ques- 
tion. But does such an infinite immaterial personality 
exist, and how came he to exist, and could he and did 
he, bring into existence out of non-existence the sub- 
stance of the universe, adjust and systematize its infinite 
differences to the verities of space and time, having 
previously caused their validities? Answer: Somebody 
in the remote past has substantially said so and we be- 
lieve it, — say our foremost educators. But these answers 
to the questions are not self-evident, or of necessity must 
be alleged. Whereas the eternity of existence, and not 
its creation or creator, is of necessity the primal postu- 
late. On this all else securely grounds. There is an eter- 
nal ongoing universe. This we must affirm. Nature as an 
infinite whole cannot be the product of its part. Nature 
being the eternal existence which is the primal postulate, 
or perhaps better expressed as the inevitable conclusion 
from axiomatic propositions in syllogistic form, viz: 
Nothing can begin to exist without cause for beginning 
to exist. Nothing can be its own cause for beginning to 



54 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

exist. Something does exist. Therefore something exists 
that did not begin to exist; that is, there must be some 
eternal existence. The material universe, — the quantita- 
tive substance which does not admit of increase or de- 
crease of an atom, and has been declared by the theory, — 
the observation and experiment of science, to be a quan- 
tity conserved forever from loss or gain; and by univer- 
sal motions is everywhere and always changing, evolving 
and involving, must be the eternal existence, — the primal 
postulate and the conclusion of reason. Eternal exist- 
ence must involve its own laws of existing and changing. 
They cannot have been imposed upon it from without. 
The cause of all that begins must in the last analysis, be 
what did not begin. That which begins to exist cannot 
be substance which endures from eternity to eternity, 
without loss or gain, but must be in the nature of func- 
tion, property or quality. This implies eternal and uni- 
versal motion as mode of substantive and phenomenal 
existing. Nature, as the infinite whole both of what did 
not begin and of what does begin to exist, owes very lit- 
tle of its phenomena to mind, or conscious, wilful pur- 
pose. ' ' There is no such thing as free will or voluntary 
act independent of the totality of the influences which in 
each individual moment guide men and keep even the 
strongest within bounds." (Moleschoott) To suppose 
otherwise would be to declare an act uncaused or self- 
caused. But a conscious purposed act is no more ade- 
quately caused than an unpurposed act. 

We are not always conscious of forming a will when 
we act, and not often know all its causes, and are liable 
to think it is spontaneous or caused wholly in and by the 
self. Strictly, there is no absolutely free, unconditioned, 
self -hood, or oneness in action, but that of the infinite 
entity of the universe. Will in itself and in its action as 
the personality of which it is a part, is not a disconnect- 
ed, independent entity, but like every local thing is a 
part of some larger dependent whole. "Human free- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 55 

dom", says Spinoza, " consists of nothing but that men 
are conscious of their own will, while ignorant of the 
causes which have induced it," The nature of man and 
his surroundings determine what he is, does, thinks, and 
wills. In a given quite extended area, say one of the 
" States of the Union", in two periods of time each of an 
equal number of years. Statistics show there has been 
about the same number of murders, suicides, marriages, 
births, deaths, accidents, fires, cases of insanity, idiots, 
males and females born, etc., relative to the population. 
The rates of life, fire and accident insurance are founded 
upon the uniformity of such occurrences; showing that 
things which most nearly concern human welfare, includ- 
ing volitional acts, are not determined by the caprices of 
freedom that might as well have had things otherwise 
than they are, but never do. Or in other words, human 
freedom acts according to the law of antecedent and con- 
sequent, like all other events. It seems as if we might 
have had some things different, when we reflect upon 
their doing. And doubtless we might. But we should 
never be free from the necessity of having things as they 
are. The determining influences which reside in the or- 
ganism of the individual, consist of physical and moral 
inclinations and impulses inherited from ancestors, per- 
haps fortified and provoked into activity by the immedi- 
ate surroundings. In this stream which is both ourself 
and not-self, we are carried along with the semblance, 
but not the reality of freedom. In an important sense we 
are the continued life of our ancestors and what they 
have made us. We are tethered to their identity. To be 
well born in an inheritance not to be estimated in lands, 
stocks or bonds. It seems little wonder that children 
should render a kind of worship to ancestors who have 
given them a strong and healthy physical, moral and in- 
tellectual constitution, and enabled them to contend 
righteously and successfully in a world of antagonisms. 
Nothing is really free from coercing and conditioning 



56 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

connections. Therefore nothing is really free. Man is 
the product of heredity and environment. The self 
comes of the not-self. Dominant ideas derived from 
without us, cause and control the exercise of the will 
within us. This is most clearly manifest in the case of 
hypnotism, when our volitions seem pitched to their 
highest degree, but wholly by foreign coercion. Our wills 
are products of our own agency, our inheritance and our 
environment, in their formation and exercise. Will can 
be no more self-caused, or determined by nothing outside 
the psychic, or the being a part of which the will is, than 
can be the body or mind. Nor is there rational ground 
to hold that there is one or many conscious, purposive, 
self-determined, personality or personalities, will or 
wills, of, or within, or transcending the domain of 
nature, that brings or bring about all events in nature 
Or that there is above or beyond nature, an intelligent 
agency, called by whatever name, that is the cause of 
man's existence, or has initiated and determined all or 
any events that occur in his life. If life was introduced 
upon our globe or into nature by miraculous agency 
transcending the capacity and powers of nature, is it not 
a fair inference that it must be sustained by miracle and 
not by nature? Nature is one. However much diversi- 
fied, it cannot transcend its unity ; as the law of gravita- 
tion declares matter to be many, it declares it to be one 
also. There is a necessity that determines and secures all 
human voluntary events no less than the events of 
physics where no human volition enters, since volition is 
necessitated. Anything that is adequately and complete- 
ly caused, and nothing else results in effect, but comes 
of necessity. Volition, as a mental act realized in a 
physical act, has its causes in all the circumstances near 
and remote, in and out of the person willing, which have 
legitimatized and necessited the result, as truly as a fer- 
tilized seed placed and retained in all conditions favora- 
ble to its growth, it is necessitated to do so. Can any 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 57 

thought or act be really free and yet be subject to causa- 
tion? To confine our attention narrowly to the very act 
and to acts nearest in time and space to the result, as, for 
instance, the trigger, and there is no such thing as 
spontaneity. This, to have the semblance of truth must 
take in a larger field. As, to make the will or volition 
free the whole mind and body of the individual must be 
included. But this larger field brought into the problem 
negatives the spontaneity or freedom of the act of the 
will, only by the explicit or implicit affirmation, that the 
individual is a detached and independent auto. The 
will's act needful to a purposed overt act, the reasons 
for and against the proposition must pass the criticism 
of cognition and feeling. And while this deliberation is 
going on, the will is in a state of contingency or uncer- 
tainty. But all eontingence or uncertainty stands on no 
other ground than ignorance. Complete knowledge of all 
circumstances and their concatenations abolishes all un- 
certainty as to cause and consequence, and sees all being 
and all events that are to be in the same certainty and 
necessity as those that have been. Contingence is never 
more than a limitation on complete knowledge, and has 
no more effect upon the real issue than ignorance after 
the event has transpired of all the causes that have con- 
spired to produce its occurrence. In the abstract reason 
or deliberation as to means, end, and consequences, might 
be defined as the objective interrelations among things 
and events; and reasoning, the perception or calculation 
of the interrelations. Desire or aversion is likely in some 
instances to evolve on this perception. We may perceive 
that our agency is a casual element that will eventuate 
the occurrence. And there is set up the reasoning or 
calculation as to all the sequences to react upon the de- 
sire and aversion. 

Discussion 20. A volition or mental choice, or feel- 
ing a preference for this rather than that, when viewed 
apart as an imminent or indwelling act, may be said to 



58 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

have its full cause within the person choosing. But as a 
philosophic question, this is a superficial view. No man 
is what he is in and of himself alone. He is made, but 
not self-made. His inmost self as well as his outermost 
self, is a product of factors not one or all of which was 
or were himself. In the thought of Clifford: "Reason, 
intelligence and volition, are properties of a complex 
which is made up of elements themselves not rational, 
not intelligent, not conscious." Choice is a complex. So 
is mind. And so is man. Matter is the eternal fore- 
ground of man. There is only one ultimate principle in 
infinite number and infinite interrelations, and it is mat- 
ter and not mind. The universe does not owe its exist- 
ence, or mode of existing or revolving to a self, or an in- 
telligent first cause, or to cause at all. It is itself the un- 
caused cause of all that is caused, even every intelligent 
self. The intelligibility of the universe was not made so 
by an antecedent intelligent personality or self, without 
whose agency to this special end it would be unintelligi- 
ble. The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, says, 
page 29 : "Nothing but the work of thought is intelligi- 
ble to thought. But thought is the most distinctive at- 
tribute and exercise of personality; only in a person 
does it originate, and only by a person can it be under- 
stood. ' ' Then were the axioms of space made such by an 
intelligent personality ? Are they manufactured articles ? 
And if not made such they would not have been? If a 
straight line was made to be the shortest distance between 
two given points, then the intelligent personality that 
made it to be so, could have made a crooked line to have 
been the shortest distance. No restrictions or power can 
be placed upon an assumed Almighty power. And the 
axiom would have been, a crooked line is the shortest dis- 
tance between two given points. If not, then why not? 
Every knowing and feeling personality is infinitely less 
in every possible aspect than the universe. Does a 
thought personality give existence and order to the uni- 






THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 59 

verse ? The intelligibility of the universe as the objective 
or counterpart of an intelligent selfhood is a necessity 
beyond the power of intelligence to think, and of intelli- 
gent power to make intelligible, were it not so. Intelli- 
gence has no power to create itself or the creators of 
itself. We may see the basis of universal order which 
nature follows and cannot but follow, whether inani- 
mate, animate or psychic, in the law of exact relation be- 
tween quantity of substance or matter and space extent, 
as expressed in universal gravitation, — directly as the 
mass and indirectly as the square of the distance. The 
reason ol one being becoming another yet retaining its 
material identity, as some gases uniting in a specific way 
become water, with all properties and uses, i. e., all re- 
lations changed except weight. And water becoming 
changed in its interrelations in a specific way, becomes 
gases, with all properties and uses changed. And so it is 
seen that no becomings, even thought-personality is 
more than property, quality or function of matter so and 
so interrelated in space and time orders. That the uni- 
verse is and must be everywhere and always definitely 
interrelated in all its parts, forces, productions, destruc- 
tions, evolutions and changes, is the necessary affirma- 
tion of highly developed intelligence. That is, that there 
is and must be definite order everywhere, is the inevita- 
ble deliverance of intelligence. And this is the essence 
and unity of the intelligibility of the universe, and the 
intelligent personality, or self, that sees and feels the 
necessity of it. For mind is the localized consciousness 
and offspring of universal intelligibility. That there 
cannot be in space or time, and consequently in their con- 
tents of things and events, absolutely no order; that is, 
no intelligibility, seems to me an axiomatic affirmation. 
It is the privilege and proper scientific business of hu- 
man intelligence, which in the last tracings of itself finds 
itself emerging from unintelligent, but by no means from 
unintelligible nature, to search out the order through 



60 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

which nature works its wonders, even its own selfhood. 
It is the definite interrelation of all things that makes 
the universe of necessity intelligible. Space and time are 
the elements, source and sanction of intelligibility. These 
are absolute, eternal, universal, uncaused, objective and 
therefore subjective, verities, the measure of all things 
that have a where, a when, a form, how muck, how many. 
Neither the Christian religion nor any other can supply 
self-evident and inevitable principles for the philosophy 
of nature. Its fundamental assumption to this end is, 
Creator of the universe. But this is not a necessary and 
inevitable postulate as first existence, nor a provable fact. 
And if admitted it would offer no explanation either of 
the universe or its creation. An explanation would be a 
mental seeing and tracing, and an intelligible communica- 
tion of how, why, when and where, the universe that was 
not, did not exist, came into existence, and is. The creator 
of existence must transcend and create time and space, for 
these verities are included in and cannot be separated 
from the universe. Nor can the universe be any part or 
property of the creator, for this would not be a creation 
of existence, but only some change or manifestation of 
what already existed, and would confound and identi- 
fy creator with the universe. Any being, personality, 
spirit, concrete or psychic, alleged to transcend time and 
space, or is independent of, or the creative cause thereof, 
may well be pronounced a preposterous utterance. The 
creator must be something. And if he created space, 
must be other than space, and where space was not. But 
space is everywhere, and everywhere is space. Therefore 
the creator of space can be nowhere. And if nowhere, 
must be nothing. For everywhere cannot be transcended. 
And every something must be somewhere. The creation 
of the universe must have been an event, and therefore 
at some time. If it should be said, he created it from 
eternity, from usually means out of, or beyond some 
limits either implied or named in the context, or express- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 61 

es derivation, or in consequence of, or on account of 
something else. To say creation was before or beyond 
eternity, would mean that eternity had a beginning and 
a creation, which would be absurd and a self-contradic- 
tion ; or the creation did not occur, and therefore the uni- 
verse did not begin to exist, which is the writer's conten- 
tion. If the creation was a derivation from the creator, 
or from something else, it was not a true and real crea- 
tion. Or if from means in consequence of, or on account 
of something else, this is beside the point for which we 
are contending, and needs no further reply. Creation 
denotes the beginning of whatever has been declared to 
have been created, no matter how far back in the past 
time or eternity the act is put. These expressions denote 
illimitation of duration, past and future. The allegation 
of the creation or beginning of time is as idiotic as the 
creation of space. The supposition of a first event or act 
(the supposition itself is a barbarism) presupposes time 
already before the event. There are some propositions 
that cannot be construed in thought, yet the mind as- 
serts their self-evident and inevitable truth. But the 
creation of the universal is not one of them. And if hon- 
estly declared, behooves to be proven. The allegation of 
the creation or beginning or ending of time or 
space, the mind of even little culture disdainfully rejects 
as an impertinence to common sense. The material uni- 
verse in its ordered positions and motions bears no marks 
of having been caused to be by an agency transcending 
itself. And the allegation of the cause of its beginning to 
be within and of itself, would be a self-contradiction. Hu- 
man intelligence, which is nature's recognition of its own 
being and intelligibility having power to arrange some 
antecedents, (but man has no power to dictate what con- 
sequence shall follow) all within nature and' the ampli- 
tude of its causal relations, has assumed without war- 
rant, and, indeed against all possibilities, that matter has 
been caused to exist and to be in ordered positions and 



62 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

motions by an agency analogous to itself. But human in- 
telligence is as evidently a local phenomenon, begun as 
is the human body. And neither itself nor its analogue 
can transcend and be the cause of the infinite universe. 

It may be objected that time and space are not in- 
cluded in the meaning of universe ; that these verities are 
not exterior to the mind, but are only subjective, abstract 
intuitive forms, having no intrinsic objective validity. 
True, different meanings are put upon the word "uni- 
verse" by different persons and by the same person on 
different occasions. The etymology of imiversum, the 
largest real and possible whole, includes all I intend by 
the word "universe." I do not include an extrinsic cre- 
ator in the word, as some writers perhaps do. This is a 
larger whole than I see reason to advocate. 

Discussion 21. Kant says there is one way in which 
we directly know objects, and this forms the material of 
all thought. This is intuition. The objects to be intuited 
must be directly given or presented to the mind. Objects 
intuitively known are of two classes, viz : those that come 
to the mind directly through the senses, and those neces- 
sarily implied, suggested, or presupposed, in immediate- 
ly knowing sense objects. Intuition is immediate percep- 
tion without thought inquiry or reasoning. The mind is 
directly receptive of the knowledge of objectives; not 
critically of their parts, or nature, or capacity, or capa- 
bility of action and reaction, or relationships, but of their 
general form, color, etc. ; and this receptivity in us he 
calls sensibility. The mind on reflection perceives, not 
through the senses, but as an intellection, that some 
truths have unconsciously and of necessity, been assumed 
in order that our experience should become intelligible 
to us; and space and time are two of these assumptions. 
But the intuition of space and time, unless directly 
pointed out, does not usually come into the foreground 
of distinct consciousness until near mental maturity. I 
have known a young man somewhat advanced in geom- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 63 

etry, who appeared not to know that he was actually 
dealing with properties of space in his lines, points, 
angles, surfaces and solids, and his processes would be 
true if there were no concrete bodies in space. But it 
seems not to be needful that these presuppositions should 
rise above the threshold of clear consciousness, since ani- 
mals cannot be supposed to have these ideas. Yet they 
practically solve some architectural problems in geome- 
try. This suggests that intuition of both classes has its 
origin in intellection in all grades of animal life. That 
is, the necessary intelligibility of nature whose offspring 
all life is, must constitute all intelligence of nature, 
which is only universal intelligibility functioning local 
intelligence, or self -recognition. This truth, the intelligi- 
bility of nature, must be a priori, or antecedent to, and 
independent of, and an element in, all experience both of 
sense and pure intellection, though it do not rise into the 
field of consciousness, and must constitute intellection, 
the senses being only a means to reach it. Space and 
time are the underlying validities or pre-implications of 
the concrete and phenomenal universe. Not only of ex- 
ternal things but of internal, of consciousness and 
thought; although this may not be in space direction and 
distance, or its occupancy. If we can affirm conscious- 
ness to be, it must be somewhere. It is inevitably in time 
relations, and may be relatively more or less intense in 
degree. In the Critique of Pure Keason, it is main tain ed 
that intrinsically space is nothing. It is true space is not 
a concrete thiug. But it is a validity, a truth, a condi- 
tion, a presupposition of all things, even of the thought 
and word that declares that space is nothing. Since all 
things in the widest meaning, including consciousness, in 
order to be, must be somewhere and everywhere is space. 
Astronomers, in determining the distance to the sun 
from the earth, are dealing with space as an objective, 
intrinsic validity. And so is every one engaged with the 
problem of distance and direction of one object to an- 



64 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

other. Neither objects nor consciousness confers being 
upon space or time. They are eternal truths on whose 
universal validity rest the intelligibility, and therefore, 
the necessary relativity of the universe and its possible 
intelligence. Kant held that space is a pure intuition a 
priori in the soul, the form of all things external already 
there, and in order that there might be external phe- 
nomena to the senses, a subjective state that makes it 
possible for us to perceive external objects, but not an 
objective condition to objects themselves. "Space is 
nothing if Ave leave out of consideration the condition of 
a possible experience, and accept it as something on 
which things by themselves are in any way dependent. 
Objects by themselves are not known to us at all, and 
what we call external objects are nothing but representa- 
tions of our senses, the form of which is space, and the 
true correlative of which, that is, the thing by itself, is 
not known, nor can be known by these representations, 
nor do we care to know about it in our daily experience." 
As Kant never married he cannot be accused of embrac- 
ing a me^e representation of his senses, the form of 
w T hich is space, the true correlative of which, that is the 
real woman herself, he did not know or cared to know. 
It may well be denied that space has only an internal 
subjective, and not also a universal objective validity. 
Sensuous objects intuited or given to sensibility, Kant 
says, have their space forms a priori, or already for them 
in the soul. And these a priori forms are pure intuitions. 
But the pure intuited forms are no exact representations 
of the shapes of objects, because their dimensions have to 
be determined by measurement, calculation and reason- 
ing, as do the space distances and directions of objects 
from objects. Is the intuited form anything more or 
other than, the unconscious or conscious necessary pre- 
implication that all objectivity and subjectivity to be 
must be somewhere, and all somewhere is space ? The ob- 
jectivity of space is as clearly averred and distinguished 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 65 

from the consciousness of it, as is the objectivity of any 
objects. Nor are we conscious that the forms of all ex- 
ternal objects are a priori in us and not really and 
actually out of us. What is the meaning of intuition ? If 
it be a truth, is it not a correspondence, a coinciding of 
intelligence with intelligibility, the inward apprehend- 
ing of the apprehensible? There is here a something 
taking in or taking on a something having the measure- 
ments of its type so to say. If there is no correspondence 
between the intuition and the thing intuited, what is the 
validity of the intuition ? The validity consists wholly in 
the correspondence. How came the universal forms of 
things, the Kantian categories, space and time, a priori 
in the soul? Is the soul a receptacle holding intuitions 
as something different from itself? Rather is not the 
soul constituted in part of a priori intuitions? Is intui- 
tion more an activity, or a passive attitude, an engrav- 
ing on the psychic surface of the sentient organism, as it 
w r ere, by intelligibility of its own likeness and nature, 
and so endows intelligence with the truth of things? Is 
there any inwardness that does not depend for its being 
upon outwardness ? If the categories, space and time, are 
intuited universal and necessary forms of all intelligent 
appreciation of the universe in the soul before ex- 
perience, how will this be accounted for unless intelli- 
gence — the conscious apprehension of nature, be the off- 
spring — the very selfhood of the necessary intelligibility 
of nature? Intelligibility has functioned or evolved 
through local mechanico-chemical organizations, the con- 
sciousness of itself, analagous to the taking on of prop- 
erties throughout the realm of chemical unions that, do 
not inhere in their constituents separated, or otherwise 
united than the specific product known as protoplasm. 
Intelligibility which is universal and necessary in nature, 
is evolving the consciousness of itself. Would it not be 
absurd to say, consciousness has arisen in and of nature, 
but is not a revelation of the truth of nature, but in some 



66 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

indeterminable sense is only a representation? Intelli- 
gence ranges from its initiation in simple, general, in- 
definite awareness or diffused feeling, common to the 
whole organism, to special, definite sense perceptions, in 
specialized parts of the organism endowed with greatly 
heightened appreciation of things in their difference and 
likeness, and intense varied feelings, to intellectual idea- 
tion, generalization and logical reasoning deductive and 
inductive. I have never seen this view advocated or even 
hinted. It may have occurred to some minds and per- 
haps been pursued to its overthrow and rejection. But I 
have worked upon it for years and it seems to me the 
most reasonably philosophic position. The universe, its 
philosophy, its intelligibility and intelligence, are all in- 
volved in five questions and their answers: the what; 
the how; the why; the where and the when. The 
what involves absolute being in its inmost and its outer- 
most; how and why, are the questions of relativity — of 
mechanics and mathematics; all becomings find their so- 
lution herein ; where and when relate to space and time, 
in w 7 hich mechanics and mathematics have their source 
and sanction. The philosophic exposition of nature in 
consciousness is the self -revelation of nature itself. Our 
consciousness must have had an origin, since it has its 
history of development and growth. Reason cannot have 
been imported into nature. It is nature's method of 
self-investigation and of self-announcement. And this 
means that the very facts and truths opened to conscious- 
ness are causal of consciousness. The investigator and 
the investigated in the last analysis are one. The first 
has become from the second, and the second ever is. What 
we think, and why and how we think, the thinker and 
the thought are wholly by and of nature. The ontologic- 
al, the innermost and essence of the all, nature is most 
reluctant to unfold in the consciousness of it. Can na- 
ture be known by what transcends the very nature of 
nature, is absolutely heterogenous thereto, and is there- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 67 

in? Automoton is defined in the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
tannica, as a self-moving machine, or one in which the 
principle of motion is contained within the machine it- 
self. This definition in its verbiage is somewhat equiv- 
ocal. Within the machine may not be of the mechanics 
of the machine. There are those who hold that the causal 
principle of all material existence, motion, life, con- 
sciousness, change and stability, while within matter and 
the organism is not of matter or the mechanics of the 
organism. But deus in machina. 

What may instinct or subconscious acts mean as 
said of animals and men? The generally accepted view 
used to be that it is God given directly, or the creature 
is divinely endowed therewith, which is no explanation, 
for the mind cannot know there is a divine either trans- 
cending or imminent in and not of nature, and cannot 
trace instinct from the divine into the animal or man. 
The postulate of the divine is not an exposition of any- 
thing whatever, because we cannot know the workings 
of the divine, nor if there be a divine. The gen- 
erally accepted meaning now is that instinct is 
ancestral experience fixed in inheritable structure- 
form, whose functioning in posterity returns, with- 
out conscious purpose, and within the organism, that 
were causative of the structure-form, while the outward 
act may or maj^ not be accompanied by consciousness. 
And this would seem to be the universal method of na- 
ture in originating and building our sense organs and 
organs of consciousness. Prof. Elmer Gates of the Smith- 
sonian Institute, in training dogs for five or six hours 
each day for five or six months, in one mental faculty, 
and on examining the brains of these dogs and compar- 
ing them with the brains of dogs of the same litter not 
so trained, found a far greater number of brain-cells in 
the trained faculty areas, than in the same faculty areas 
of dogs not so trained. This proves that the brain is 
susceptible of growth and discriminating power by di- 



68 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

rected and continued exercise. This implies that there 
is nascent power of discernment in undifferentiated liv- 
ing protoplasm. Spencer views instinct as "compound 
reflex action." And reflex action is the origin of all 
degrees of consciousness and is co-ordinate with the 
emergence of life from the non-living. Indeed, its par- 
allel might be claimed in the pure physical, as reaction 
is necessarily consequent upon action. 

"Under its simplest form," says Spencer, "reflex 
action is the sequence of a single contraction upon a 
single irritation. A vague manifestation of this sequence 
marks the dawn of sensitive life." It is seen in living 
protoplasm where there are no specialized structures as 
nerves and muscles through which it acts, but the whole 
vitalized mass is both irritable and contractile. But the 
evolution of the living mass produces special forms of 
tissues for receptive and reflexive activities. The im- 
press of the external world in its differences upon the 
local complex of physics and chemistry, which itself has 
been formed in nature's laboratory as the embryo in- 
strumentality for nature's self-appreciation, there is co- 
ordinate with the formation of this physico-chemical 
complex a new order of being-life, simple awareness 
or nascent feeling, a unit imminent in all the living mass. 
This universal seat and condition of life and all degrees 
of consciousness and volitional action is known as pro- 
toplasm. There seems to the writer good reason to hold 
that the property of life and consciousness arises after 
the analogy of properties of chemical compounds which 
are not intrinsic in the separate constituents. Nascent 
feeling is the beginning of individuality and experience, 
which in its reflex influence upon the recipient organism 
originates special forms of tissue which differentiate, in- 
tensify and localize, different feelings which correspond 
to different presented aspects of nature. The forms of 
the tissues and their appropriate feelings being inherit- 
able by posterity there results a growing completeness of 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 69 

recognition of the cosmos of these special local forms of 
the cosmos. And this recognition is alone the subject or 
self, as distinguished from the object or not-self. It does 
not seem to me impossible or even improbable; indeed, 
so far as I can see, or better perhaps, so far as I cannot 
see, acidity can no more arise from the chemical union 
of non-acid sulphur and non-acid oxygen, than life from 
the non-living chemical elements that unite to form liv- 
ing protoplasm. And all the reasons that warrant me to 
affirm (which are not a seeing how) that acidity .does 
arise from non-acid constituents, and must therefore in 
reason be caused by their interrelations of positions and 
motions, together with an unknown adaptive nature to 
this result of these constituents and contributions to the 
result by the environment. So we have similar and as 
weighty reasons to affirm that life and consciousness do 
arise from a far more intricate chemical complex called 
protoplasm. There are many different kinds of acids, 
and acidity of different qualities are co-ordinate with 
chemical unions of other non-acid constituents, while no 
life or consciousness is known to be co-ordinate with but 
one definite chemical combination of substantially the 
same kinds of matter. Or if there be a difference the 
protoplasm that functionates human life and conscious- 
ness contains more elements, and consequently the in- 
tricacy of their interrelations is more complex. And as 
the substantial unity of this one complexus is the seat 
of, and contains the processes of all life and mind, it 
seems to me to present all the certainty of a causal rela- 
tion of antecedent and consequent between a definite 
local chemistry and consciousness, as is presented by an- 
other definite local chemistry and acidity. True, we can- 
not trace the causal nexus between chemical organization 
and the physiogenesis of life-function, from bare indefin- 
ite, diffused, awareness, to definite, intense, local feeling, 
logical thought-building and philosophical judgment, as 
we can trace the causal relation between the mechanics of 



70 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

the watch and its time-keeping property, or intelligently 
follow, step by step, the necessary relations between the 
given data of a mathematical problem and its solution. 
How life and consciousness are the functionates of a 
material organization nature may never reveal to con- 
sciousness. But that consciousness is co-ordinate with, 
or has simultaneous effect upon, causal relation to chem- 
ical organization, we have all the evidence that comes to 
us that other properties arise from other chemical or- 
ganizations, viz : that mental properties are never known 
except in such organizations, and when the organization 
is dissolved the mentation ceases, as when other chemical 
organizations are dissolved, other properties are extinct. 
Nor does there seem a greater warrant to interpolate a 
knowing and feeling entity separate and independent 
from the chemical organization to account for conscious- 
ness, than an acid entity separate from and independent 
of other chemical organizations to account for acidity. 
For we can no more find acidity separate from the com- 
bination whose property it is, than we can find conscious- 
ness separate from the combination whose property it is. 
Consciousness is very specialized and dependent upon 
substantially one chemical combination, while there are 
many acids differing in their qualities determined by 
differences in the chemical combinations. Therefore the 
evidence seems to be stronger for the alone complete 
causal relation between chemical combination and con- 
sciousness, than chemical combination and other inherent 
properties. Isomerism and allotropism greatly strength- 
en this judgment. For combinations of the elements in 
the same proportions may have very different properties. 
And the same element may have very different proper- 
ties, as carbon may be diamond, or charcoal, or graphite. 
And this may be explained by differences in which the 
components of atoms are arranged among themselves. 
Consciousness has its known functioning organs and 
place in organism, and may be increased in power by ex- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 71 

ercise, as muscular contraction has its, and may be in- 
creased in power by exercise. 

Discussion 22. The why of organization and of 
chemical affinities and the resultant properties of their 
unions whether termed physical or psychical are no less 
inscrutable enigmas than universal gravitation, in the 
present state of science. One thing is evident — processes 
involving definite positions of matter in motions in defi- 
nite directions, velocities and amplitude of projection, 
produce products widely different in their nature, from 
what undergoes the processes. It may be held with all 
the reason that warrants any inference from given prem- 
ises, that psychic phenomena result from the same funda- 
mental premises of matter in definite related forms and 
motions, that warrant us to hold that physical phenomena 
so result. There is no scientific evidence of their being 
anything or need be anything transcendent in the former 
phenomena more than in the latter. There is only this 
antagonizing dogmatic assertion: "Matter and motions 
under no physical conditions whatever, can be causal of 
consciousness." Nevertheless, all the evidence we have 
shows nature alone to be as competent for the one result 
as for the other. It is as evident that what enters into 
and becomes our body, as food and otherwise, brings 
forth consciousness, thought and feeling, as that the pro- 
duct is muscular contraction and various secretions and 
excretions. What feeds and sustains life in all its mani- 
festations must suffice for its origin. 

Principal Fairbairn says : ' ' The transcendental can- 
not be excluded from our view of the universe. But the 
transcendental in philosophy is the correlate of the su- 
pernatural in religion." Yes, Deus in machina, has de- 
cended from the childhood of the race as the ready and 
generally accepted solution of all mysteries. And the 
Christian religion, heir to the Semitic, as an unscientific 
and unphilosophical philosophy, has accepted the solu- 
tion and is propogating it in all lands, and the child's 



72 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

answer to mysteries is "God does it." But it explains 
nothing, and is only the substitution of a greater for a 
less mystery. No solution is reached thereby, for our 
intelligence is not informed. Solution of a problem is 
effected only when the mind sees that the reasoning 
through which thought passes must of necessity reach 
the true solution. If the author only mean that the 
transcendental could not be excluded from his view of 
the universe, I shall not call in question the statement. 
But there would have been no point in expressing such 
a view. He must have meant that whenever any one 
avers the existence of the universe, by necessary pre- 
implication, a transcendent is averred as its creator, as 
when an event is averred to have occurred, there is the 
necessary pre-implication of a somewhere and a some- 
time, though these conditions may not be stated. But 
such implication is simply not true. For the existence 
of the universe carries with it no necessary implication 
of its creation or a creator of it. He says : ' ' To affirm 
the transcendence of thought is to affirm the priority of 
spirit, for spirit is thought made concrete — translated, 
as it were, into a personal and creative energy; it is 
mind as opposed to matter, a known as distinguished 
from an unknown, conceived as cause of all dependent 
being." The being he declares transcends the universe, 
certainly transcends thought and the need of his affirma- 
tion, and is a mere gratuitous assumption. For unless the 
universe is known to have been created, or there is an 
obvious or probable state of things which implies or 
necessitates the averment of its creation, there is no war- 
rant for the allegation of a creator. And surely it can- 
not be proven by ever so much averment which is alone 
the theological and religious proof. The claim is only 
an animistic survival, much developed and enlarged, a 
religious dogma, warranted by no proof of the creation 
of a single atom of matter, or the need of its affirmation. 
For the primal affirmation is eternal and uncreated ex- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 73 

istence, and not the creation or creator of existence. The 
universe, a word which sums the universal real and pos- 
sible all, now and ever the all would not have been 
all by an infinite margin before the creation of 
the universe of matter, force, space and time. 
Creator and creation are survivals from the ages 
when men had no conception of the impossible, the 
self-evident, the need of proof beyond assertion, and 
Gods were as common as sticks and stones; had the 
merest experience, and no intellectual view of the infi- 
nite extent and content of the universe, and saw no 
difficulty in the creation of matter, and took what comes 
into and goes out of sensuous appearance, as beginning 
and ceasing to exist. This idiotic relic is dressed up and 
disguised in modern philosophic language, indefinite as 
to exact meaning, and beyond the willing criticism of 
persons who will be likely to read the passage quoted. 
"It is the philosophy of the Christian Religion" — well 
named. But it is not the philosophy of nature. This 
transcendental in philosophy he may well say is the cor- 
relate of the supernatural in religion. Nature cannot 
be transcended, nor is there a supernatural. The infini- 
tude of nature bars all existential and thought-meaning 
from those words. Should the child 's question be asked : 
Who made the universe ? the reply is : it was not made. 
Uncaused and eternal existence must of necessity be the 
postulate of reason and even of religion, when the latter 
has passed the infantile stage. The postulate must be 
an existence known through actual experience, and not 
a fabulous existence. A monotheistic God as creator "of 
the material universe is as fabulous as polytheistic Gods 
claimed to have accomplished the same achievement. It 
is impossible to conceive an act creating matter, or an 
existence performing the creation of matter. And as such 
an act or such an existence is not a necessary affirma- 
tion, or an unavoidable implication of what cannot be 
denied, what enforces or justifies the affirmation? In- 



74 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

conceivability is not a negation of the truth of what ne- 
cessitates an affirmation ; as the illimitation of space and 
the eternity of existence are inconceivable, yet we are 
under the necessity of their averment. The words ' ' cre- 
ation of matter and creator of matter" convey no intel- 
ligible meaning, nor are they necessary averments. The 
inconceivability of its negation is not always a test of 
the truth of the existence of what is affirmed, as the lim- 
itation of space and the creation of matter are as incon- 
ceivable as their contradictories. There is no other sup- 
position possible. Space must be either limited or not 
limited. While both terms are equally inconceivable 
they are not equally incredible. To claim that space is 
as likely to be limited as not limited, because each alter- 
native is inconceivable, or that each stands before the 
light of reason on equal grounds of acceptance or rejec- 
tion is either absurd to the asserter or his reason is de- 
fective. The averment that space is without limits is 
inevitable. And the denial of its limitations is equally 
inevitable. The creation and non-creation of matter, are 
each inconceivable, but not each equally incredible, since 
eternal and uncreated existence is an unavoidable con- 
viction, and matter is the only existence that bears the 
incontestable marks and stands the test of experience and 
of theory of being ever a persistent quantity. It stands 
therefore before the reason and the scientific induction 
of the persistence of matter, as the eternal and uncreat.d 
existence that must be primarily postulated. Neither 
physical growth nor age always outgrows the state of 
mental childhood. Childishness thinks everything must 
be made, or put into the form it bears and made to do 
what it does by somebody. And having no conception of 
the universe and none of the creation of matter, but some 
of the world he lives in, he asks : Who made the world ? 
The parent or reliigous teacher, moving on an uncriti- 
cised religious plane, answers, ' ' God made it. ' ' And hav- 
ing none but a religious philosophy, this answer becomes 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 75 

the dogma that solves every problem of his life. .And 
the Christian devotee speaks approvingly of the "sim- 
plicity of this childish faith. ' ' 

It is the animism that has come down from remote 
ages, and we pay ministers to teach this doctrine in our 
own, and send missionaries to carry it to foreign lands. 
So probably I may be greeted with this question put in 
the positive form : Then you do not believe in God ? Not 
in any that I can put into thought with the persuasion 
that what I think is the veritable creator of the universe, 
in which and of which we live and all things living and 
not living, move and have their being. The creation of 
and putting into motion and interrelating the infinite 
material, space and time universe, is a job that no 
amount of declamation or number of believers in, can 
make true and real. Such an existence is impossible to 
be realized in imagination, and is not imposed upon rea- 
son as an a priori truth, nor of possible proof. God or 
Gods have been of almost universal assumption among 
men. And those who, by themselves, claim to be the most 
learned and civilized have repudiated polytheism as a 
relic of ignorance and barbarism, and as never having 
had any ground of fact or reason to rest upon. But the 
same assumptions that are held to be needful to ground 
monotheism, grounded polytheism, viz: the creation and 
operation of matter and phenomena. But whether the 
present scientific attitude towards the functions of living 
existence, viz : the division of labor into specialized agen- 
cies to secure greater perfection of operative results is 
not more consonant with the supposition of many Gods 
than of one, might be debated. The assumption of an ex- 
istence separate and apart from all the existence of our 
experience, of our possible conception, and the ascrip- 
tion to it of personality and eternity of existence, and 
creative cause of the existence of the universe, and every 
detail of its operations; it is much simpler and just as 
satisfactory to reason, to ascribe eternity to the universe 



76 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and self -operating power with all its marks of purposive 
design and order. Eternity of existence and self-activity 
must be posited somewhere, and this had better be the 
existence and activity that cannot be denied existence, 
than an existence of which it is impossible to obtain any 
satisfactory evidence either that it is, or that it did cre- 
ate or could have created and effected the infinite distri- 
bution of matter, as it were, as small an achievement in 
execution as our saying: "God could have created the 
universe, because he has almighty power. ' ' We seem not 
to know or forget that all the evidence we have of such an 
existence or of creative agency, is that somebody in an 
unidentified past time presented the substance of this 
theologico-religious dogma as the explanation of things. 
And it has been repeated with modifications ever since, 
without adding any evidence of its truth, such as is re- 
lied upon by informed and critical minds to prove other 
propositions. It is impossible there should be any evi- 
dence to prove the creation of the universe. The evidence 
that was all sufficient to prove creation and a creator of 
the universe and anything else, until intelligence had 
outgrown easy faith and had learned that all phenomena 
occur according to laws of nature, that is, according to 
positional and motive interrelations of matter and force, 
and not according to the will of imaginary Gods many or 
one, was what never could be proven true, divinely in- 
spired speech and writings, and miraculous deeds. These 
capricious prodigies become obsolete when it is seen 
that they are inconsistent with a broader and deeper 
view of nature as the all encompassing and all perform- 
ing existence in her own eternal right and power. To 
enhance the view of nature is to depreciate the view of 
the Gods. Theology is the superstition of childhood re- 
tained and worked upon by more intelligence to realize 
the child's faith in thaumaturgy, — the bringing of some- 
thing out of nothing, and the doing of something with- 
out a known doer. The type is always reproduced in the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 77 

offspring. If morality or ethics in its broadest and deep- 
est meaning relates to conduct, and conduct signifies ac- 
tion, desire, purpose and power to promote the well be- 
ing of animal existence, and this appertains especially 
on the part of man towards his own species and inferior 
species of animals, and this principle holds good on the 
part of a supreme being who has created man, (and why 
should it not?) it cannot be shown to hold good practic- 
ally on the part of the being said to have created, and 
who actuates and controls nature. It cannot be main- 
tained that the forces of nature are so governed and con- 
trolled as always to promote the well being of mankind. 
Js there a moral implication in human reason and con- 
science on the creator of nature and human life to pro- 
mote by means commensurate with the creator's power, 
human well being? It is likely this question may be 
answered by some in the negative, and the reason of a 
negative answer is obvious. It is plainly seen that it is 
not so used. There is entire absence of evidence that the 
destructive elements of nature are ever controlled in the 
interests of human well being, if life, health and happi- 
ness are regarded as his well being. And to maintain 
what is conspicuously true against the universal father 
and the universal good is a virtual denial of such ex- 
istence. Cyclones, tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanic 
eruptions unhindered and without warning, destroy un- 
told thousands of human beings. Cities, theaters and 
other buildings full of people are burned; vessels go 
down at sea with their freight of human beings; black 
death and other epidemics decimate countries; wars sac- 
rifice millions of lives and cripple and deform as many 
more ; famines from unfavorable weather for the growth 
and maturing of crops, devastate provinces of their pop- 
ulations; murders, thefts and robberies are hourly oc- 
curring; religious wars, massacres and persecutions take 
place because the one true religion is not universally 
known, and always as expressive of the believed will of 



7% THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

God that it should be so, and TeDeums are sung to the 
praise of the equal father of all by the successful party 
of a great battle, that he has given the victory. And Dr. 
Sprenger in his Life of Mohammed computes the num- 
ber of persons who were burned as witches during the 
Christian epoch as nine millions. Witches were those 
who had made a compact with the Devil as against the 
authority of God. All this catalogue of horrors, and it 
might be indefinitely increased, has occurred and is oc- 
curring, and no Almighty power or fatherly love, con- 
trols the elements or forewarns the people, or informs 
them which one of the many religions is the true one, or 
that all are equally acceptable upon the pretension of 
divine revelation guaranteed by miracle. But there is no 
evidence of a divine providence of poAver and love that 
protects individuals or peoples, or forewarns them of 
disasters that might be avoided. Human life seems no 
dearer to its creator than vegetative life, nor persons 
protected from pain and sorrow, than change of position 
of inanimate thing's, and individuals from sweeping de- 
structions than the most insignificant insects, for both 
alike are freely sacrificed while the species of each is 
equally preserved. Is it not more consistent to deny the 
existence, or at least hold in suspense the judgment, of a 
being of creative and Almighty power and of infinite 
love, against whose moral character such a catalogue of 
permitted calamities, and sanctioned by silence, religious 
wars and massacres perpetrated on the ground ot"' de- 
fending his own self-revealed existence, character and 
will, without correction individually as universal as the 
race, and self-evident, should be chargeable with no suc- 
cessful showing of their fallacy? Nature's demand for 
marriage, followed by the agonies of motherhood as if 
the one end of human life to be secured is to continue the 
species, no matter what consequences may come to the 
individual; the birth of offspring with defective bodies 
and imbecile minds without the capacity of seeing, hear- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 79 

ing, or of speech, with organic insanities and birth-ten- 
dencies to crime and inebriety; contagions diseases with 
no power to detect the poison or knowledge to avoid its 
impress upon ns, and early death of a majority bom ; the 
anguish of forever parting from the loved objects for 
whose advent into life there has been so much suffering, 
their removal seems a mockery of the nature which de- 
mands offspring, and does not point to a creator of Al- 
mighty power and infinite goodness and love. All this is 
seen to be true without a voice of denial. And so men 
frame systems of excuses in justification of the being and 
his doing which their isaacy has created and endowed 
with Almighty power and infinite love and compassion 
for the human race which he has brought into existence 
"for his own glory," and go about giving consolation 
and assuring agonizing grief that juvenile death is evi- 
dence as manifest and quite as assuring of God's love, as 
birth which has satisfied the nature which he has im- 
planted in mankind. But in this respect the whole ani- 
mal world might urge the same condemnation and should 
be entitled to the same consolation. Behold the manifest 
sorrow of our dear domestic animals bereft of their 
young. I mourn with them as sensibly, if not as acutely, 
as with the human mother whose dead offspring lies in 
her bosom. We all are of one kith and kin in origin and 
most likely in destiny. 

Discussion 23. But this defense is put forth as his 
revelation of self-justification and charging the suffer- 
ing victims with the procuring of their own misfortunes 
and death by going out of their natures and the influence 
of their surroundings, neither of which could man have 
been the author of nor have prevented the activities of 
the latter. And man has devised a remedy and detailed 
its origin, workings, and effects both upon his race and 
upon his God, for Gods one and all are man-made, and 
charging all the dire calamities upon the first man whom 
he had made in his own image, and the first woman, and 



80 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

by inheritance had continued in all their issue which is 
the entire race of man. The remedy works no prevention 
of external calamities through the controlled violence of 
nature's forces, or of disease, or death, or internal hu- 
man tendencies to wrong doing, but is curative of all bad 
effects that have been wrought not here and now in this 
life, but promises complete cure in a future life which 
the remedy also promises, but exacts faith on the naked 
ground of the promise as the only condition on which any 
benefit can be received therefrom, and threatens eternal, 
punishment for the failure of faith. But the unfitness, 
partiality and mysterious extravagance of the remedy, 
plainly discovers its human origin. Of all the stupid 
dogmas imposed by theology on its devotees, none seem 
more idiotic to common experience and observation, than 
that the world is under the restraints of moral law; that 
it is governed by an Almighty father, who pities and 
succors his children. The creator of the universe is 
anthropomorphic in form, disposition, acts, methods and 
failure of constant good results. The remedial appliance 
is effected through a God-begotten Son after human 
methods upon the person of a human virgin. "The Holy 
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
shall overshadow thee, wherefore that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. ' ' Be- 
sides the unequivocal statement of begetting, the conse- 
quential birth is stated to have occurred nine months 
after. But as the need of the remedy is a mystery of hu- 
man fancy, so is the remedy in its origin, in its working 
and its results. It seems the most astounding absurdity, 
amply sufficient in reason and common sense, to defeat 
the entire Christian theology, by which every other 
theology is defeated, that the being claimed by the Chris- 
tian scheme to be the creator of the universe, omnipres- 
ent, omniscient and omnipotent, should have a begotten 
son after human methods, partaking of his own divine 
nature and attributes and also of human nature and at- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 81 

tributes, though without commingling of these essentially 
heterogeneous natures. But the entire divine nature and 
the entire human constitutes the son. Then this is pro- 
posed for religious faith which requires no evidence but 
the divine ipse dixit for which there is no evidence ex- 
cept human testimony called divine inspiration. 

Neither fetichism nor polytheism, with their worship 
of inanimate and animal objects and the birth and 
genealogy of Gods as the Greeks held, from which mono- 
theism and European and American theologies and re- 
ligions are true lineal and legitimate descendents, present 
greater absurdities. "The greater part of mankind have 
united to acknowledge that which is most probable, and 
which we all are by nature led to suppose, namely, that 
there are Gods. Protagoras doubted whether there were 
am'. Diagoras the Melian and Theodorus of Cyrene en- 
tirely believed there were no such things. * * And 
since opinions are so various and repugnant to one an- 
other, it is possible that none of them may be, and abso- 
lutely impossible that more than one should be right. The 
Pythagoreans, when they affirmed anything in disputa- 
tion and were asked why it was so, used to give this 
answer: "He himself has said so," meaning Pythagoras. 
But the force of reason in disputations on Christian the- 
ology and religion, the final and satisfactory answer to 
all questions is: "God has said so." And if still pressed 
oy the question, how it is known that God has said so, the 
reply is, it is so written in his book, the Bible. And this 
book is what holy men of old spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost. But the proof of these allegations 
does not rest on necessary presuppositions, reason, nor 
experimental verification, — simply on authority; some- 
body, in remote antiquity, nobody knows who, has said 
so. The last expression may be taken as true, for there is 
probably not one statement deemed essential or import- 
ant to the Christian system that had not been announced, 
cr had not been claimed to have been wrought previous 



82 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, in regard to some older 
religion. And perhaps also true of Hebraism and Juda- 
ism. Nor according to late research is the origin of this 
people so remote in antiquity as has been generally sup- 
posed. Prof. Gunkel, in his Legends of Genesis, says: 
''Between the primitive races of southwestern Asia and 
the appearance of the people of Israel upon the stage of 
life, had rolled unnumbered millenniums, hence there is 
no room for serious discussion over historical traditions 
said to be possessed by Israel regarding those primitive 
times. In former times, before the deciphering of hiero- 
glyphs and cuneiform writings, it was possible for Israel- 
ite translation to be regarded as so old that it did not 
seem absurd to look to it for such reminiscences of pre- 
historic ages; but now we see that the people of Israel 
is one of the youngest in the group to which it belongs - T 
there is an end of all conjecture. ' ' The author just quot- 
ed seems to confuse differences and sometimes to identify 
them, and sometimes to be inexact in his definitions. 
Legend he says, is originally oral tradition. And legends 
are not lies, he says. To be sure lies may be defined some- 
what equivocally. It may be a lie as to the true histor- 
icity of the event declared, but true in the consciousness 
of the narrator. Tradition is what is handed down by 
word of mouth, and if it purport to be historical fact, 
may be as true as that which comes in writings. For the 
false as well as the true may be committed to writing. 
And the false is not made true by writing it. Shall this 
be the algebraic expression. Legend equal Tradition? 
Tradition kept alive by one generation orally repeating 
its happenings to the next after is believed to retain a soul 
of truth, and may, once witnessed to by the senses, but 
now overgrown and undergirded with error by not being 
at first committed to a permanent form of record. Is 
the creation of the world; the formation of man from 
dust ; and the giving life to that form by God breathing 
into his nostrils ; the forming of woman from a rib taken 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 83 

from the man; what God said on the various creations; 
that the spirit of God moved upon the waters; that the 
Lord repented that he had made man on the unexpected 
disbehavior of man ; that God said let there be light, and 
let us make man ; and what God said about going down 
to confound the language, legend? oral tradition and 
may therefore have a particle of objective truth? Was it 
once partly true that serpents and she asses used to 
speak, and angels and women had carnal connection, and 
God walked about in an earthly garden observed of man ? 
If these statements are legends, then legends do lie, for 
there cannot be a shadow of truth in these idiotic alle- 
gations. They are naked lies as to their objectivity. 

The Christian world takes these legends for demon- 
strated objective truths, and events that have occurred 
with all the actuality and certainty that characterize the 
changes of the seasons. In these and their like which 
make up the Christian's sacred books, are to be found 
the evidences of the divine existence, the creation of all 
things, man's origin and destiny, his religious duty, the 
grounds of his future life and what is to happen to him 
then. The stories of all the Gods of every nation and 
people are myths. "Stories of the Gods are in all na- 
tions the oldest narratives. ' ' And Hesiod is as likely to 
be a faithful historian as Moses, the prophets, or any of 
the New Testament actors or writers. Our theology is 
but a mythology like the theologies of the Orient. They 
are only legends in which the actors and speakers are 
the Gods of story-tellers. Jehovah is simply the God 
of the Hebrews as is Zeus of the Greeks, and Jupiter 
of the Romans. "Many myths attempt to answer ques- 
tions and intend to give instruction." This is the case 
of many of the legends of Genesis. The stories of the 
Patriarchs are legends, not individual and family his- 
tories. Patriarchal names are names of tribes. The 
legends of the Bible are variously classified, as aetiolog- 
ical, with the view to explain something. The question, 



84 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Whence came heaven and earth, would be likely to arise, 
as it does now. The explanatory story of the creation is 
the answer. So of the origin of man and woman, animals 
and the vegetative kingdom, the rise of nations, the cause 
of death, the desire for continuous life and so on. Le- 
gends are the answers of early attempts to find a cause. 
And this natural propensity alike moves towards science 
and philosophy. But theology and religion are neither 
science nor philosophy. They do not found in objective 
fact or reason. They are the continued story-telling of 
the moderns based upon the fictions of the ancients, and 
to future generations will be myths and legends. Their 
warp and woof are curiosity and emotion, prompted by 
the universal characteristic of human intelligence and 
feeling, to seek after a cause. How many unconscious 
legends and myths we all daily tell and receive for 
truth and fact through our easy faith. And none tell 
more than preachers in their preaching and devotees in 
their hearing. The dogmas of the New Testament find 
their theological and religious standing on the fictions of 
the Old. The creation of the world, the formation and 
fall of man, the introduction into the world of sin and 
consequent death from the slight disobedience of eating 
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, es- 
pecially as the fruit was good for food, was pleasant to 
the eyes and desired to make one wise. Pity there had 
not been a line of enterprising horticulturists who should 
have brought the descendents of the tree down the ages, 
that by eating its pleasant fruit one should become wise, 
it being an attainment so difficult and expensive in time 
and money to acquire through our schools and 
travel. The wild prophetic rhapsodies of thought and 
speech — " A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. He 
shall be called Immanuel, the Mighty God, the Everlast- 
ing Father. Of the increase of his government there 
shall be no end upon the throne of David." This wild 
burst of senseless enthusiasm infolds essential dosmias 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 85 

in the mythics of our theology and religion which has 
had dominance for millenniums the definition and de- 
fense of which has engaged the world's councils, emper- 
ors and kings, and provoked wars and massacres, and to 
this day these fictitious stories of sacred literature are 
held by millions to contain the only ground of hope for 
man's future life and well being, and his happiness and 
satisfaction here and now. There had been a previous 
announcement by one of those diviners of future events 
made to David and Solomon, that David's throne, in the 
line of his descendants should be established forever. 
This prophecy proved abortive in David's grandson. 
And the complete political sovereignty was wrested from 
the Jews before the birth of Jesus Christ. This was a se- 
vere shock to a people who flattered themselves that they 
were special favorites of Almighty God, who had called 
forth from a distant land the progenitor of their nation, 
and favored him with personal interviews and conver- 
sations; and had promised great gifts to his posterity, 
when as yet he had none, and had given him posterity 
(to make good the promise) beyond the term of nature's 
ordinary capacity, although a future mariage brought 
him six lusty sons, perhaps as many daughters. But 
daughters with a barbarous people are of so little conse- 
quence as generally not to merit a record. God had also 
promised the land of the Canaanites to Abraham's pos- 
terity. And after centuries of waiting and after the de- 
scendants of Abraham had become a numerous people as 
slaves in Egypt, God led them out triumphantly as 
against the whole military force of Egypt, fed, watered 
and clothed them forty years in making a journey that 
in nearest route might have been accomplished in eleven 
or twelve days ; gave them a jurisprudence, ordered their 
occupancy of Canaan, generalized their wars for con- 
quest and gave them two days without an intervening 
night, for the greater slaughter of those who were de- 
fending their homes; their possessions, their wives and 



86 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

children; ordered the extermination of the population, 
and divided the land and its improvements among the 
Hebrews. But all this tale of Israelitish sojourn in 
Egypt for four hundred years and their Exodus there- 
from under the awful circumstances related in the Book 
of Exodus is unworthy of belief, for the record shows 
upon its face its mythical character. And critical intelli- 
gence of to-day has rejected all marvels much less in de- 
gree of absurdity as contained in other sacred literatures 
as fictitious. And there is no way of rescuing these He- 
brew prodigies from the class of invented stories as 
groundless of historical fact as any other romances. They 
are uncorroborated by any reference to them, or the life 
and growth of the Hebrew people in Egypt in any rec- 
ords as yet found there, or to any incidental mention of 
their sojourn there, or to their departure from Egypt in 
the midst of such striking physical phenomena, by any 
other people having relations with Egypt. Hastings 
Bible Dictionary says : ' ' The work of excavation of lost 
cities and monuments has gone far to negative certain 
hypotheses as to the Exodus, if not to render them im- 
possible. The decipherment of inscriptions and papyri 
belonging to the time of the Exodus has furnished us 
with geographical and historical annotations of the 
highest value. It must not be supposed that the result is 
an unmixed confirmation of the biblical account. A re- 
cent decipherment of an Egyptian inscription shows that 
the Bene-Israel were already in Palestine at the time of 
the Exodus. ' ' But all these romantic stories invented by 
a people whose early history like that of other peoples of 
remote antiquity not being fixed in permanent form, be- 
ing lost, show that they sought, like other races to ac- 
count for their history and for themselves through 
miraculous interposition of God or the Gods. And these 
tales and their similitudes in the Jewish writings have 
served as proof of the objective existence of the Hebrew 
tribal God, and been accepted by Europe and the West- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 87 

em continent to be the one universal and only God, with 
the indefinable, self-contradictory definition, viz: "1st, 
There is but one God and this God is one ; i. e., indivisi- 
ble. 2nd, That the one indivisible divine essence as a 
whole, exists eternally as Father and as Son, and as Holy 
Ghost ; that each person possesses the whole essence and is 
constituted a distinct person by certain incommunicable 
properties not common to him and the others." Outlines 
of Theology by A. A. Hodge, page 132. It will be ob- 
served that the one indivisible God is entire in each of 
three distinctive personalities, and this is true eternally ; 
that is, regressively without beginning, and progressive- 
ly without termination. Theology talks of eternal gen- 
eration, as if what one term affirmed, the other did not 
deny, of God the Son by God the Father, and a mun- 
dane begetting of God the Son on the person of a virgin 
by God the Holy Ghost, who is the same one and entire 
God as the Father and the Son. And grave Doctors of 
Divinity see nothing grotesque or objectively impossible 
in this romance, because found in their inherited theo- 
logical and religious authority. If they had been born 
of Mohammedan parents and raised in a Mohammedan 
country, the Koran would have been their religious au- 
thority. And so as becoming Brahmans or Buddhists. 
And those unnatural tales would have been to them as 
impossible of belief, as historically true as they are to 
devotees of other theistic religions. If one says : they are 
historically false but theistically and religiously true, to 
be apprehended and held by faith, they do not belong 
to the field of nature, but to the supernatural. We will 
leave this statement before the jury of thought without 
comment. Nor does the number of advocates of any so- 
called supernatural religion increase the evidence of its 
supernatural origin or agency. For the supernatural is 
not susceptible of verification by experimentation or cal- 
culation. 

Discussion 24. Whoever maintains that the great 



88 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

number of advocates of his religion is evidence of its 
supernatural origin and extension, must find a reason 
for the extension of other religions nearly or quite as 
numerous in adherents as his own. If those that are op- 
posed to his have succeeded in obtaining so large a fol- 
lowing without a divine causation, the critical mind, and 
without prejudice, might say, if these religions have so 
greatly prospered as to adherents and the long time they 
have continued to satisfy successive generations, these 
evidences would show, if they have any evidencing value 
on the proof in issue, that these with your religion are 
alike supernatural, or yours and theirs are alike destitute 
of the supernatural element. Either horn of the dilem- 
ma would prove an ouster of a supernatural religion. 
Would any intelligent and unprejudiced mind say that 
there was a supernatural curative relation between a dis- 
eased person holding in his hand a bone of a dead saint, 
or a piece of the cross on which Jesus of Nazareth was 
crucified, and the cure of the disease? I should be pre- 
pared to expect the first reply would be, the bone of the 
body of a dead sinner, and a relic of the cross on which 
either of the thieves was crucified would be just as effica- 
cious, provided the patient believed they were the bone 
of the body of the dead saint and relic of the cross which 
sustained the dying Jesus. Then it may be admitted that 
recoveries have followed these prescriptions. Then it was 
faith that cured (there have been many faith cures) a 
direct mental and indirect physiological and hence cura- 
tive effect, and not a supernatural or a divine touch. 
And this leads me to say that whenever any result may 
be credited to belief in a definite objective speculative 
cause, the faith is just as efficacious if there be no such 
operative cause. "Thy faith hath made thee whole. ,T 
Jesus was carried away with this power of faith, when 
he said, (if he ever said it, and not because some unknown 
person has put it into his mouth, need we believe it of 
him) : "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, be- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 89 

lieve that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." And 
this explains the satisfaction which every form of relig- 
ion gives its devotees; and equally so all the virtues and 
crimes of all religions. If faith and fulfillment guaran- 
teed by belief, be the proof of one theology and religion, 
it must be Ihe proof of all theologies and religions which 
rest upon the same claim, under the same guaranty. Our 
grave Doctors of Divinity are provoked to smile and to 
the expression of surprise that the learned Greeks could 
have been so fool-fangled as to have accepted for true 
the absurd stories told in the Theogeny of Hesoid of the 
origin of the world and the birth of the Gods; or the 
Greeks and Romans taking the will of the Gods by 
augurs, hieroscopy and a hundred other modes of divin- 
ation. It may be said in truth that there is no greater 
absurdity told by Hesiod concerning the birth of the 
Grecian Gods, than the orthodox Christian theology 
maintains as to the birth of its God; nor the objects of 
heathen worship, than the objects of Christian worship, 
as Mary the mother of Jesus, and images, or of heathen 
means of curing the sick, than of Christian shrine or relic 
cure. In the eighth and ninth centuries "Throughout 
Christendom the practice of medicine was altogether su- 
pernatural. It was in the hands of ecclesiastics and saint- 
relics, shrine and miracle-cures were a source of bound- 
less profit to the Church." Draper's Intellectual Devel- 
opment of Europe. 

I am by no means sure that miracle is not the legiti- 
mate and authorized Christian cure of disease and pro- 
curer of all our needs. It was the means used by Jesus 
and he endowed his disciples with the same power and 
sent them out to exercise it. And on their return they 
report to him its successful exercise. His words are 
proof that it is legitimate and an important feature in 
whatever he purposed to effect. He authorized, invested 
with its power, and sanctioned, miracle cure, without 
definitely prescribing the external form of its adminis- 



90 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tration. "All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
earth." "He that believeth on me the works that I do, 
shall he do, and greater works than these shall he do, be- 
cause I go to my Father. ' ' He healed the sick, raised the 
dead, cast out devils and cured leprosy. Believers in him 
were not to be hurt by serpents, or by drinking deadly 
poisons. They were to lay hands on the sick and recovery 
was to follow as a consequence. He created bread and 
fish, prepared and cooked for food; and killed a live fig 
tree by his vocal power. And declared to his disciples: 
"If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall 
say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; 
and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto 
you." This range of subjects extends over much of ani- 
mate and inanimate nature, and he proved by illustrative 
examples the truth of his declarations. And here is the 
extent of the application of effective faith as just said: 
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe ye 
receive them and ye shall have them." ""All things are 
possible to him that believeth." It appears from the 
above quotations and others that might be cited, that 
Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven which he purposed 
to set up, should be administered entirely by miracle. 
That all physical wants of food and clothing, as in the 
journey through the wilderness; the curing of diseases, 
as he was constantly doing, and sometimes his apostles; 
the supply of birth defects, as the giving of sight to the 
born blind ; and restoring of limbs to congenital cripples ; 
the immediate restoration and healing of the ear of the 
servant of the high priest cut off by a sword in the hand 
of Peter; the removal of physical objects, as declared of 
the mountain and the sycamore tree ; and whatever else 
should be needed for the welfare of the subjects of his 
kingdom, should be obtained, not by physical effort or 
through secular or mental labor, with now failure and 
now success, according to the affairs of this world, but 
by miraculous procurement. He condemned labor. "La- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 91 

bor not for the things that perish. " " Seek first the king- 
dom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto 
you." "My Father knoweth that ye have need of these 
things." "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall 
find." "Behold, the birds of heaven, they sow not, 
neither gather into barns, and your Heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than 
they." ''"Why are ye anxious concerning the raiment. 
Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do 
they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these." "If God so clothe the grass of the 
field which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
shall he not much more clothe you. ye of little faith?" 
He exhorted against taking any thought for food or 
clothing, or for things of the morrow. 

It is evident by the answer Jesus returned to in- 
quiries sent by John the Baptist, that he purposed to set 
up a miraculous kingdom on earth, that should not be 
earthly in its mode of administration. i ' Go tell John the 
things which ye do hear and see, the blind receive their 
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf 
hear, the dead are raised up." He declared to Pilate 
that his kingdom was not of this world. He also declared 
in his great prayer that the subjects of his kingdom were 
given him by his father out from the world, and they 
were not of the world as he was not of the world. So rad- 
ical and momentous was the subjection to the allegiance 
of his kingdom that the dearest ties that bind to the 
economy of the world, — the love of father, mother, wife 
and children, and life itself, was incompatible with it, 
and must be renounced. He said he did not pray for the 
world. His kingdom and the world were two dissimilar 
and separate affairs. Therefore it was not his intention 
to benefit the world on the world's principles of admin- 
istration. Hence the folly of Te Deums on the triumph 
of battle, or praise and thanksgiving to God on the suc- 
cess of any worldy enterprise. There was to be no blend- 



92 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ed or amalgamated union between the heavenly elements 
and the earthly that there should be a loss of the dis- 
tinctive properties of each in a new substance, as it were. 
Nor were individuals gradually to absorb the heavenly 
elements so as to be uncertain to which master they owed 
allegiance. The difference was immediate, radical and re- 
deeming. The characteristics of each should be distinct- 
ive and clear cut. There was to be no mistaking tares for 
wheat. It is vain to say that these positive statements in- 
tend only a relative value, while there is no hint in their 
connection or elsewhere in the record of his saying, that 
he did not intend the full meaning of his expression. 
And he had the teaching of the Old Testament to back 
him. It was man's disobedience that determined the 
curse of the earth and the need of man's labor for his 
support. And when a new divine effect was made to set 
up the kingdom of heaven and to retrieve man's lost for- 
tunes, God undertook the task by miraculously deliver- 
ing a selected tribe from Egyptian bondage, and con- 
tinued the effort for forty years without a break, and 
for centuries thereafter with varying success, fought its 
battles for possession of lands without the recorded loss 
of life or wound to one of the tribes as long as they 
obeyed the divine commands. And the inspired writer 
of the 105 Psalm says: "He brought them forth also 
with silver and gold, and there was not one feeble per- 
son among their tribes. ' ' 

Discussion 25. It cannot be denied that the quota- 
tions above, coming from God that made the worlds and 
all things, are sufficient authority for undertaking any 
physical prob]em by prayer with the assurance of ac- 
complishing it. During the centuries of the dark ages 
Christendom was altogether Christian, and not at all 
scientific. The statements of the two Testaments were 
taken at their obvious face value. And the Catholic alle- 
gation that what Protestants call "the dark ages" were 
ages of Christian light superior to any ages since, may 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 93 

be defended from the Bible standards. As the Bible is 
God's revealed will to man, it must needs be the supreme 
authority. The kingdom of heaven is the Church of 
Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament, and is 
the organic embodiment of divine wisdom and power, 
and exercises it visibly through agents selected and in- 
vested with fitting qualifications to administer the king- 
dom, it must be presumed by the king, if the kingdoms 
be really or divine origin. For we cannot suppose the 
kingdom had a heavenly source and then left to the abor- 
tion of every heavenly issue through the ignorance and 
wickedness of its human administrators, abandoned by 
the divinity that gave it birth. The supreme legislative, 
judicial and executive power is conveyed in the short 
symbolical deliverance to the Church of the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven with authority to forgive and retain 
sins, and to loose and bind in heaven such as should be 
loosed or bound on earth. As the grant of power is not 
given in detail but in comprehension, it must by impli- 
cation carry the authority to unfold and develop the 
symbol according to exigencies as they arise, to formulate 
doctrines and prescribe ritual and the proper conduct of 
its subjects with retributive judgments, and authorita- 
tively to interpret and construe the teaching given ver- 
bally and by deed by him who came from heaven to insti- 
tute heaven's kingdom on earth, and therefore to insure 
its success. And as the Church should never be over- 
come by its foes and its great head would not permit its 
enemies to stand before its defenders in a verbal contest, 
the implication is that the development of the grant into 
particulars should be guided, controlled and consum- 
mated in accordance with the supreme head of the king- 
dom. The Church is not a democracy but an absolute 
monarchy. I know that the first proposition is affirmed 
by some Protestants and the second denied by them. The 
idea of kingdom and king is opposed to the Protestant 
view. All theologies repose on the conception that God is 



94 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

an absolute monarch. A democratic kingdom founded 
and appointed by an autocratic sovereign who cannot 
abdicate his throne nor his authority is a self-contradic- 
tion. Christianity cannot deny without stultification that 
its author is the absolute ruler of heaven and earth. The 
New Testament in its origin, doctrines, and appoint- 
ments, presents the Church as a monarchy, not a democ- 
racy, visibly administrated by its members, but secretly 
selected and endowed by the great head of the Church. 
" Without me ye can do nothing." "I am with you al- 
way, even unto the end of the world," and other pas- 
sages carry this implication. Indeed it is a necessary one 
to afford expressional and efficient harmony between 
what is proposed to be done and means of doing it. 

Let us see if the historical working of the Church 
furnishes reasonable evidence that the claims set forth in 
the Bible of a bona fide kingdom of heaven projected on 
earth by an Almighty omnipresent and omniscient be- 
ing. It is recorded as if spoken to Isaiah by Almighty 
God, "I am the Lord; that is my name, and my glory 
will I not give to another, nor my praise to graven 
images. ' ' It may be seriously questioned whether mono- 
theism which is the view presented in the Old Testament 
is not contradicted by the Holy Trinity of the New. And 
judged by reason and common sense whether both the 
monotheism of the Old and the Trinity of the New, are 
not antagonized by the adoration of the Virgin Mary, the 
worship of images, the invocation of saints, and the de- 
vout attachment to relics and shrines. The worship and 
invocation of these objects were almost universal in Eu- 
rope during the dark ages, and by no means are yet abol- 
ished. It would be difficult logically to avoid the con- 
clusion that the motto of the * ' false prophet, " " There is 
but one God, ' ' does truly express the idea of monotheism, 
and the Christian Trinity does truly express the idea of 
polytheism. Theology is not a science, not objective 
knowledge and subjective knowledge concerns ourselves. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 95 

It is not an intuition or demonstration ; nor is it a neces- 
sary assumption. If all Gods have been discarded from 
Christendom but one, why should one be retained? The 
many were once held to exist as certainly as one is now 
held to exist. The Gods were as helpful and satisfactory, 
as responsive to prayers, and sacrifices offered in faith 
then to the many as to the one God now. Increase of in- 
telligence has banished all Gods but one from the most 
enlightened portions of the earth and judging the future 
by the past, it will banish the one. Notice the difficulty 
with which the devotees of one religion relinquish their 
faith and accept another radically different. One religion 
is as comforting as another without being subjectively 
truer or objectively more false, so far as divine existence 
or deed can be proved. One God accounts for phenomena 
as well as another, since it is one's faith in the absence of 
all objective proof. The supernatural does not lie as an 
object of discovery in the course of man's advancing in- 
telligence. It is not involved in any department of hu- 
man knowledge. Nor can it be used as an intelligible 
solution in any problem in nature, for the best reason 
there is no supernatural as the object of our knowledge. 
Science is distinguishing itself more and more from re- 
ligion. 

Discussion 26. No recent text book of the physics of 
the heavens declares as an intelligible explanation of 
stellar order, that God, as an historical event, created 
and arranged the heavenly spheres in the order we know 
them. But if science assumes the position, for which 
there is valid evidence, that the matter which constitutes 
the solar system was once in a revolving, attenuated mass 
from excessive heat, the known laws of the dissipation 
of heat, the consequent cooling and contraction of mat- 
ter, the increased velocity of the revolving mass, and so 
forth, would at least result in the present order of the 
solar system. This would be an intelligible explanation, 
for the mind is able to see the course nature must take 



96 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and the final issue, not what course arbitrarily assumed 
will might take. The mathematician is able to see that of 
necessity the sum of all the successive angles formed in a 
plane and upon one side of a straight line, is equal to 
two right angles. And the intelligent human intellect 
cannot assent to the declaration that the will and power 
of any being caused the sum to be just this, or could 
cause the sum to be more or less, or cause any mathe- 
matical axiom to be what it is, or make it different. What- 
ever we are willing to say God has ordained or caused, 
we cannot admit that he has caused mathematical 
truths. Whatever the mind sees axiomatically it cannot 
be persuaded that God has caused it to be so. What we 
see to be of necessity we cannot allow to be of choice. 
And this is a limitation upon the assumed divine exist- 
ence and power. The domain of inevitable truth, cause 
and effect, is enlarging as man's reach of comprehension 
enlarges. The divine causation is religiously summed up 
in the creation of the material universe and in giving it 
laws of procedure in phenomena. But the mind rejects 
a cause or beginning of space and time, and a creative 
cause of mathematical truths, and declares there is of 
necessity eternal existence. The necessity of postulating 
eternal existence cancels all need and all right to postu- 
late either creation or creator of existence. Eternal ex- 
istence carries with it the necessary laws of its existing 
and of the processes of phenomenal becoming. There is- 
sues from thousands of pulpits every Sunday the reitera- 
tion that God is an eternal infinite personality, creator of 
the material universe, of all life, the bestower of all good 
things and states. This is the great fallacy of endowing 
a word with universal estate, instead of finding univer- 
sal being. It is the fallacy of substituting a fiction, the 
religious averment of the supernatural, for the essential, 
concrete and psychic, and all comprehensive existence 
and action of the universe, as the be all and do all. This 
is the position common to fetichism, animism, poly the- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 97 

ism, and monotheism. But no evidence such as is ad- 
duced to prove any other proposition can be brought for- 
ward to prove this. If this is true really and causally, it 
is true objectively. But the supernatural is not a the- 
orem — a demonstrable theoretical proposition; not a 
problem — a demonstrable practical proposition; not an 
axiom — an indemonstrable theoretical proposition ; not a 
postulate, — an indemonstrable practical proposition. It 
cannot be used for any purpose of knowledge whatever, 
nor as a step in the solution of any problem. A solution is 
an. explanation of how a thing is done. Nothing of which 
Ave know anything is self -existent, self-conscious, or self- 
active under the pervading and overmastering teaching 
of theology. All things of our knowledge are religiously 
banked in something of which we know and can know 
nothing. 

The fiction of a supernatural we have said cannot 
explain anything, for it is not known how it acts, 
that it acts, or that it exists. How can it be 
distinguished from nature and be identified as the 
supernatural? What are its methods of working, 
and what the products of its activities? Is it 
said, the creation of the universe? Yes, this reply is very 
easy. But is to say so, any evidence of its objective 
truth ? There is and must be eternal existence. The uni- 
verse exists, and shows no marks of having begun to ex- 
ist, and there is no competent evidence of such an event. 
The universe is all that is known or can be conceived, or 
need be averred to exist. This is evidence that the uni- 
verse is eternal and uncreated. There is much allegation 
that the universe is the product of creation. But what is 
the need to allege, and what and where is to be found the 
evidence that sustains the allegation? I suppose the 
Christian will reply, the Bible. But can the competency 
and integrity of this lvitness, sworn "to tell the truth, 
the whole truth and nothing but the truth" under cross 
examination, satisfy an unprejudiced but intelligently 



98 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

critical court, that its testimony is the original divine 
source of evidence, and not hearsay, and finally traced 
to a writer of fiction. But this book of fiction, like much 
other folk-lore occurring in the department of faith 
which is the most deserving virtue, and ensures the ob- 
jective truth of its objects, in the absence of any evi- 
dence, has passed through many editions and many 
changes and still has many readers and believers. The 
universal order of nature needs no postulated super- 
natural arranger to impose upon nature what is foreign 
to it. Absolutely no interrelations among differences, 
simply no order whatever, is antagonized by intellectual 
necessity. There is no absolute unconditioned, unrelated, 
no order among differences. But the whole of difference 
is of necessity one ordered and interrelated system, or 
universe not devised and created, and ordered by intelli- 
gence and power foreign to the universe, but every thing 
part of and involved in the universe. Of necessity there 
must be alleged relativity among all existences, not con- 
crete only. The inevitable mathematics of space and 
time impose their universal order of related positions, 
duration and change throughout infinite extent and in- 
finite difference, and bring into systematic order the 
whole universe. 

Discussion 27. We cannot predicate mind in the ab- 
sence of matter, nor as product or property of matter, 
per se, but only of matter in states and under conditions 
not fully understood. There is a reluctance to hold mat- 
ter to be the basis, the scene and the productive means to 
mind, and an effort to find first through denial that un- 
der any conditions of itself can material nature function 
consciousness, which in its highest and lowest degrees is 
the consciousness of itself, i. e., nature they would say is 
not known and felt by, and to itself, but by and to a for- 
eigner; and then comes the affirmation of an immaterial 
or spiritual persistent substance which itself thinks and 
feels and acts. And while the proposition of eternal un- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 99 

created self-active existence is self-evident, or must be 
postulated, and nothing but matter in motion known as 
energy or force, is known or with good evidence is held to 
be quantitively persistent from an indefinite past and 
therefore by inference to an indefinite future; and no 
immaterial or spirit substance is known to exist, not to 
say has persisted from an indefinite past, and therefore 
may continue to a remote and indefinite future. I cannot 
say nor do I feel, that eternal and infinite nature identi- 
fied as the sum total of all that is, has been, or possibly 
can be, may not hold out all the reasonable grounds of a 
future life. Since these grounds, if there are any, must 
be of her, come from her, and realize their issue in her, 
to expect personal life and blessedness during an in- 
definite future. They cannot be reasonably furnished by 
a word-constructed and word-endowed being, denied to 
be of nature, that is, denied to exist under conditions of 
space and time, which thought cannot distinguish from 
denial to exist at all, but words may ; and affirmed to be 
supernatural; affirmed this and nothing more. Besides 
the universal relativity of all existence, states, properties, 
qualities, positions and motions, expressible in space and 
time orders and degrees, there is growing up among 
scientists, the conviction that chemical atoms do not ex- 
press ultimate and persistent differences of matter; that 
the sum total of qualities and powers reside not in mat- 
ter per se. But in the naked entity of matter there is the 
least of properties and powers, and all differences of 
atomic elements and all varied powers and phenomena 
are the issue of the mechanics of one matter, whose most 
distinguishable attributes are numerical, formal and 
motile. Of this essential unity of least qualities and 
greatest multiplicity of numbers, all differences and 
powers are determined by the mechanical relations of 
numbers, forms and motions. We must hold that chem- 
istry is mechanical placing and action. This leads to the 
averment that the universe in the last analysis yet at- 



100 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tainable is attributable to one matter, not to seventy or 
eighty matters each of an absolute kind. And all dif- 
ferences whatever whether called physical, chemical, vital 
or psychical or otherwise, are evolved from the mechanics 
of essentially one matter in the infinitude of its num- 
bers, their combinations, forms and motions. 

Evolution, or we may say the relative but not abso- 
lute creation of properties, qualities, and powers arise or 
come into the actual fact of being from the mechanics of 
elements in which singly and alone there is not a trace of 
said properties, qualities or powers. This is somewhat il- 
lustrated in the ten arithmetical forms. Each in itself is 
only a shape. But it has come into usage that each figure 
shall represent a definite abstract power or value, and 
this power rises or falls in value as the place occupied by 
the figure is related to the places occupied by other fig- 
ures of the same arithmetical expression. But arith- 
metical relations are not creations of intelligence, but 
representations discovered by intelligence of the neces- 
sary economy of nature; or nature's discovery of itself. 
The same principle is illustrated by the letters of an 
alphabet, which by themselves are merely special forms, 
each called by a definite name and represents a definite 
phonetic value. But these forms only become significant 
as they are assembled into precise mechanics of words, 
these into sentences, and these into discourses. These in- 
stances only partially illustrate what nature is every- 
where doing on the most stupendous and varied scale in 
creating properties, qualities, powers, and all phenomena 
of the universe through material numbers comparatively 
negative of differences of intrinsic nature, built into pre- 
cise mechanical structures, and these into groups of high- 
er order, and each single element moving in a definite 
velocity, amplitude of range and direction within the 
structure, and each structure in motion of precise direc- 
tion, amplitude and velocity, within the limits of the 
larger groups. And all this complex mechanics is with- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 101 

out known or traceable, or necessity of implied intelli- 
gent purposive direction of energy as a separate agency 
and distinct feature. That is, that the material elements 
without intelligence in themselves or an intelligent agen- 
cy directing their movements and coercing their position- 
al and motile mechanics, separate and distinct from them 
in their midst or remote from them and determine the 
products, take their interelated positions in the physical, 
or chemical, or organic building and execute their mo- 
tions and deliver the necessary resultant products, with- 
out foreign, i. e., supernatural architect or artist. The 
fact of existence, its laws of existing and action, of 
forms, functions, changes, evolution of products, and the 
universal ongoing of nature are parts of eternal nature 
itself. Intelligence is partial, local, numerical and is the 
issue of a definite organization of matter, under definite 
external conditional, without an intelligent agency so far 
as is known, or can be traced, or of necessity must be in- 
ferred. Intelligence itself is the product and deliverance 
of the most complex material structure known, con- 
structed without a trace of the guidance of intelligence 
as a separate factor ordering the construction, or im- 
minent as an efficient or final cause in the elements tak- 
ing form, or determining the function of the structure. 
But it is appreciable to sufficiently cultured intelligence, 
as all things, events and relations are. There is no wreck, 
no tangle, no disaster, no construction, no destruction, of 
worlds or atoms, no happenings, but a sufficient intelli- 
gence would discover that every part, piece, form, state, 
and action, under all the circumstances, is just what, as, 
where and when, it must be of necessity. And in this 
statement I include the factor and issue of intelligence. 
For all differences that make up the universe are and 
must be of necessity interrelated or orderly arranged in 
related positions, actions, states, causes and consequences, 
in simultaneity or succession. Not that they were ar- 
ranged in the order they bear by an intelligence and 



102 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

power superior to and other than the universe. Or that 
the universe could of possibility, be in no order what- 
ever. The universe is eternal self -existing and self -evolv- 
ing, and self-interrelated and self-functioning. All be- 
comings are predetermined from eternity as involved in 
eternal and universal nature, not predestined by an in- 
telligence and power foreign to, and other than nature, 
by whom they were incorporated into a created and con- 
structed concrete universe. But nature is eternal and 
eternally endowed without a foreign endower, with nec- 
essary and inevitable mechanical and mathematical in- 
terrelations in all its changeless quantity of matter and 
energy and changing phenomena, And all this relativity 
and fact must be lodged somewhere. And we may better 
lodge it where we find it and know it is than where we do 
not know it is, and are under no necessity or constrain- 
ing evidence to place it there. The necessary attributes 
of space and time determine to our intelligence the order 
of all changeless and all changing existence. Nature is 
without teleology or final cause, because she has no final 
end, as she has no first beginning. What is without be- 
ginning must continue without end. There is no super- 
natural. Eelativity is universal and inevitable. There is 
no creation of matter or energy. Evolution may be called 
creation of forms and functions, and consequently of 
products. But they are all changes of what was before. 
There has been no addition to quantitative existence. 

Discussion 28. The great mistakes of philosophy are 
the postulates of one definite intelligence as the all deter- 
mining factor in all that is, becomes or changes ; the cre- 
ation of matter ; the endowment of matter with motions ; 
and the interrelating of universal nature in accordance 
with previous design, and intelligent working to the de- 
vised plan. This method can never yield a philosophy. 
This tracing of existence and phenomena to its source in 
free will, will never find such source either by proof or 
in the necessity of its affirmation. Free will or arbitrary 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 103 

choice cannot be recognized as the presupposition or 
finality of a scientific philosophy. For scientific methods 
have and can have no relations to an absolute and unre- 
lated entity, not even the determination that it is, or that 
it need be postulated. Philosophy must found on the 
axiomatic assumption of eternal uncreated existence, and 
the full and adequate reason of all becoming and change 
must be involved in eternal existence and conditions, 
both the fixed and universal and those that have come by 
formal changes, and that of necessity. Existence and 
phenomena are the only subject matter of scientific in- 
quiry. The inquirer, his investigation and methods, and 
the results, are all included in nature, and are nature 
knowing and trying to know itself. The investigation of 
nature must ground on the axiomatic assumption that na- 
ture or the universe is eternal and uncreated, under the 
necessary presuppositions of space and time, which of 
necessity assure all things, and all changes, and all func- 
tions, and all qualities, to be related in mathematical 
order, and therefore intelligible. Existence cannot have 
begun of arbitrary free choice of whether it should be- 
gin or not. For the primary and inevitable assumption 
is not free choice, nor creation, nor creator of existence, 
but existence uncreated and eternal. And from this nec- 
essary assumption, the allegation of a creator of existence 
seems an impertinence. And human intelligence even 
perverted by a religious revelation I should suppose 
could not descend to the absurdity of declaring that 
space or time were created or began to be, or axiomatic 
truth ever began or can ever cease to be true. There 
cannot be finality except in eternal existence and neces- 
sary truth and necessary becoming. Of what may have 
been or not have been, or what might have been other 
than, where and when it is, contingent on arbitrary free 
choice, with all conditions, circumstances and results in- 
cluded in the free choice, we know of no illustration in 
the universe or out of it. Should it be asked why the 



104 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

straight line is the shortest distance between two points, 
or why all the angles that can be drawn or thought with- 
in a circle little or big, all the vertices being on the cen- 
ter, are equal to four right angles, and no more; would 
the answer be, God caused it to be so, the implication be- 
ing if he did so, he could have caused the truths to have 
been otherwise; or would it be, it is impossible that it 
could be otherwise, and impossible that the propositions 
ever began to be true ? If the truth of such propositions 
in cultured human thought rested in the conviction that 
it is the effect of a free will choice to have it so, and con- 
sequently contingent on the continuance of the creative 
free will, the whole aspect of nature would be changed. 
And the feeling of nature 's constants and stability would 
be lost, and neither enduring science nor philosophy 
would be possible. And as at different periods in the his- 
tory of Christendom many believing in the creation of 
the world had a legitimate ground to believe in its anni- 
hilation, and as its destruction by fire had been foretold 
and signs of its near approach given as its creation had 
been declared in what they accepted as a divine revela- 
tion, groups of people have lost confidence in the world's 
continuance and become demoralized in the expectation 
of its speedy conflagration. It is a legitimate inference 
that what begins must cease. Creation from nothing is 
not a necessary postulate, neither is it a proven fact, 
therefore material existence and energy can not be 
ascribed to a creative cause, nor axiomatic truth to free 
choice, but to the necessary postulate of eternal exist- 
ence, and self-evident truth upon the necessity of its be- 
ing true. Of arbitrary will or unconstrained, uncondi- 
tioned, undetermined choice to be or to do, there is no 
known or conceivable example in nature or human na- 
ture. All things material, functional and psychical are 
interrelated, nothing is unrelated or alone, or can be 
conceived destitute of parts. Existence and phenomena 
cannot ground on arbitrary choice that they should be 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 105 

rather than not be. Choice cannot account for necessary 
existence nor for necessary truth which it is the destiny 
of our nature to hold eternal and inevitable. But choice, 
a dependent psychical phenomenon, is as much necessi- 
tated by its causes, as the falling of an unsupported 
stone. 

There is no first cause where there is no beginning. 
Effect is the necessary consequence of its cause. Choice 
is a subordinate factor and implies deliberation and two 
or more alternatives, and is finally necessitated on the 
line of least resistance and the greatest influence. All 
.cause is imminent for it brings effect to itself, albeit it 
may be transitive also. No cause is absolutely one, that 
is, without conditions and relativity per se, or has no con- 
tributing factors as method, state of that which is to be 
acted upon, environment, when, where, etc. If the cre- 
ator is eternal and uncaused he or it must have a nature 
independent of his or its free choice either to have or not 
to have. Self-destruction would be as impossible as self- 
creation, if creation of the universe was a necessary out- 
come of his nature and therefore unavoidable, though 
this would not exclude the factor of volition were this 
involved in his nature. And unless involved in his ne- 
cessitated uncaused nature, it cannot be conceived how it 
could be there to be exercised. Volition is not the con- 
tradictory or even the contrary of necessity, but wherever 
it is exercised it is an element in necessity. On final 
analysis necessity is seen to determine all being and all 
change and production. Creation from nothing is unin- 
telligible and inconceivable, and as absurd as it is use- 
less. To speak of creation from eternity is self-contra- 
dictory. It both affirms and denies date in the same sen- 
tence, i. e., it affirms and denies creation, for creation 
supposes an act as well as a product, and eternal exist- 
ence denies all beginning and all dates. The eternal un- 
caused cause is not to be conceived as potential and ante- 
dating the effect, as not yet ready or empowered to be- 



106 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

come a real cause. This would deny the eternity of 
cause. Therefore it cannot be volitional or deliberative, 
as determined by the greater persuasive validity of some 
alternatives than those opposed. And volition cannot 
command the consequence of cause except in the cause, 
nor its destiny. Every cause is destined as well as every 
effect. Cause implies effect already in being. We must 
begin with the uncaused and eternal, as our necessary 
primal postulate. 

Discussion 29. It might be urged that it would be il- 
logical and even impertinent to claim that what has been 
presented above as to the relations and properties of 
cause has any application to the creator or creation of 
the universe, for we know nothing of the nature or meth- 
ods of action of such a cause. We grant the force of the 
demurrer, but whether against the writer or the objector 
depends on what can be shown as to the objection. It is 
true, and carried a step further is just as true, and it 
states my view. No such cause and effect as a creator and 
the created universe are known to exist, or ever to have 
existed, or can be proven, nor are there tenable grounds 
for the hypothesis. Therefore until creator or creation, 
or the beginning to exist of the universe, or at least rea- 
sonable grounds for the hypothesis can be shown, the ap- 
plication of cause to the existence of the universe would 
be illogical and even impertinent. Eternal uncaused ex- 
istence is a necessary indemonstrable theoretical proposi- 
tion. As the historicity of the creative act producing the 
created effect of the universe can never be proven, nor 
shown to be necessarily implied from the fact of the uni- 
verse, as against the demonstrable theoretical proposi- 
tion, viz : Nothing can begin to exist without cause for 
beginning to exist. Nothing can be its own cause for be- 
ginning to exist. There is existence. Therefore there is 
eternal uncaused existence. It cannot be said by the ad- 
vocate of any religion, from the proof of it, that my Grod 
is the uncaused and eternal existence that as such must 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 107 

be postulated, that has created the universe; nor from 
any proof of it, that the universe began to exist, making 
its creation a necessary implication. I take the declara- 
tions of the creation of the world as contained in the so- 
called sacred and divinely revealed writings to be as 
wholly human and as destitute of divine revealment as 
any other writings. The writers and their age of the 
world knew scarcely anything about the world, and had 
no conception of the impossibility of absolute creation, 
and held any new appearance to be a new creation. And 
the back-woods part of the present age holds to the same 
notion for the same reasons; they have been so taught, it 
is an easy solution of all difficulties, and they know no 
objection to it. As knowledge of matter, force, and mind 
increases aud consequently problems and theorems aug- 
ment in number and difficulty, by means of the one open 
sesame — the word God, all is satisfactorily accounted 
for. As the conception of the world is enlarged by the 
telescope and microscope, by the study of the earth's 
structure, its petrifactions and its living fauna and 
flora, it is discovered that there had been no separate in- 
dividual or species created; indeed, there needs not the 
hypothesis of creation. But evolution of forms, functions 
and attributes, of all present organic beings from for- 
mer beings, with slight difference from difference of con- 
ditions, brought about in time by these selections of 
nature, without what we call intelligent choice, all dif- 
ference in organic beings has thus been evolved. This 
organic principle becoming established by a wide experi- 
mental and observed induction and constantly gaining in 
the judgment of those whose intelligence on the subject 
entitled their judgment to consideration, and all bearing 
adversely on the statements of creation of the sacred 
books, the advocates of their inerrancy were sore dis- 
tressed until they discovered how to work the problem. 
The same talismanic word was found to work equally 
well in every emergency. Nothing has yet been discov- 



108 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ered but there is one word that means more. In science 
it is observation, experiment, proof in logic, it is prem- 
ises, reasoning, conclusion; in theology it is God. Dar- 
win carried back an assumed possible creation of organic 
life to some one common primordial germ. He says: 
• ' All living things have much in common ; in their chem- 
ical composition, their cellular structure, their laws of 
growth and their liability to injurious influences. We 
see this in so trifling a circumstance as that the same 
poison often similarly affects plants and animals, or that 
the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous 
growths on the wild rose or oak tree. In all organic be- 
ings the union of a male and female elemental cell seems 
occasionally to be necessary for the production of a new 
being. In all, as far as is at present known, the germinal 
vesticle is the same. If we look even to the two main di- 
visions, namely, to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 
certain low forms are so far intermediate in character 
that naturalists have disputed to which kingdom they 
should be referred; and on the principle of natural se- 
lection with divergence of character, it does not seem 
utterly incredible that from some such intermediate pro- 
duction both animals and plants might possibly have 
been developed. Therefore I should infer that probably 
all organic beings which have ever lived on this earth 
have descended from some one primordial form." Dar- 
win's Origin of Species. 

Evolution vs. creation has been for about fifty years 
the scientific explanation of animate nature; and it is 
coming to be recognized as equalry applicable to physical 
nature, to all differences of the kinds of elements of mat- 
ter. The chemical atoms until recently were held to be 
undecomposable and changeless kinds of primitive mat- 
ter, but are now discovered to be resolvable into com- 
ponents 1,000 times smaller than the smallest chemical 
atom, and to lose all the properties of the chemical atom 
which they composed. The amazing thing coming to 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 109 

light is that all the corpuscles composing all kinds of 
atoms are every one just like another, and equally adapt- 
ed to become a constituent part of this or of that atom 
or kind of matter. That is, all the differences of kind 
of matter, their forms, functions, capacity for service, 
all properties, states, qualities, activities and resultants, 
are effected by what naked and alone are only the prop- 
erties of numerical difference, charged with electricity, 
motion and capacity to enter into mechanical union with 
its fellows, and take part in any service in nature. The 
corpuscles at their present showing seem to be the prim- 
itive stuff of which nature is made, and appear destitute 
of anything that may not come strictly within mechan- 
ical expression and handling, presenting strong evidence 
that the universe is everywhere mechanical and conse- 
quently to be mathematically interpreted and construed. 

Scientific insight is prophetic. "As early as 1816 
the celebrated Faraday pointed out the possibility of a 
fourth state of matter, as a consequence of a hypothetical 
transformation which transcends evaporation by as much 
as evaporation transcends the fluid state ; or, he expressed 
his thought still better by saying that he looked forward 
with the greatest impatience to the discovery of a new 
state of the chemical elements. He suggested further, 
and this has an especial interest with reference to the 
theory with which we are now occupied, that the decom- 
position of the metals, their recomposition, and the re- 
alization of the formerly absurd idea of transmutation, 
were problems which chemistry one day must solve." 
Modern Theory of Physical Phenomena, Richi. 

Discussion 30. The intrinsic and its amazing func- 
tions come from the extrinsic, and the intrinsic dissolve 
into the extrinsic. Nature is evidently one universal 
mechanical system composed of a vast multitude of con- 
tributing mechanical systems, and includes every reason 
why it is and for what it does. And there is no evidence 
that its mechanics were planned and produced or are 



110 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

sustained by what we know and feel to be intelligence, 
or that its force is a kin to what we call physical 
strength. There is no reason to predicate intelligence as 
a universal factor in nature's operations. 

Matter, stark, seems to have only the attributes of 
magnitude, multitude, form and motion. Investigators 
are declaring that matter is everywhere charged with 
electricity. The corpuscles whose numbers make up the 
chemical atom, has by rigid mathematical measurement 
been determined in its mass, in its velocity of motion, 
and its electric charge. To these must be added the ca- 
pacity of entering into positional and motile relations 
with its fellows, and performing differentiated function- 
al service according to numbers in certain related posi- 
tions and motions and according to a related environ- 
ment. This seems predicable of matter per se. But all 
further differences of phenomena, as to chemical atoms, 
properties, states, qualities, life, feeling, consciousness, 
etc., appear to be involved in the mechanics of numbers, 
positions, and motions of the corpuscles. "This view 
gathers strength from the fact that whether derived from 
glowing metals, incandescent carbon, gas flame, ultra- 
violet light waves, or no matter from what source the 
corpuscles are obtained, they are all alike in their cor- 
poreity and behavior, one differs from another only nu- 
merically. This furnishes reason for the belief that mat- 
ter, in its naked entity has been reached. ' ' But we need 
to hold this opinion loosely. Nature surrenders her ulti- 
mate facts with much reluctance. It is surprising if 
man has come upon nature 's ultimate unit of magnitude, 
number, weight, concrete form, and motion, the primary 
element of all else. In no proper sense can space or 
time be said to have primary elements. Matter and 
electricity are always quantitatively associated, so that 
electricity is no longer considered fluid, but as atomic. 
An atom of matter has associated with it a charge of 
electricity as definite in quantity as is the atom. This 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 111 

has been carried so far by some investigators as to hold 
that corpuscles are not particles of matter charged with 
negative electricity but particles of electricity possessing 
properties of matter. "Matter is made up of electricity 
and nothing but electricity." The invariable quantity 
of electricity associated with a corpuscle is called an 
electron. The mass, velocity of motion, and the elec- 
tric charge of a corpuscle, has been determined. Its mo- 
tion as it flies off from a disintegrating atom depends 
upon some conditions and is said to vary from 10000 to 
90000 miles a second. The mass of the corpuscle is com- 
puted to equal 000000000034 and the mass of the hydro- 

10,000,000 
gen atom to equal 0,000,000,00034 

10,000. 
If, at the present state of science the anticipation 
of Prof. Farady is not fully realized it seems on the 
point of becoming so. That the corpuscular is the fourth 
state of matter and transcends the gas state as much 
as the gas state transcends the fluid state, seems true 
enough. It is very recently discovered and it seems a 
permanent acquisition to science, and not less amazing 
than was the announcement and proof of the law of 
universal gravitation, that the union of homogeneous 
bits of matter differing only in numbers and the me- 
chanics of their combinations and motions constitute all 
the differences of the chemical atoms. Perhaps the point 
least sustained by evidence is whether when an atom is 
disintegrated into its constituent corpuscles they unite 
differently than before and form another kind of matter 
and so prove the transmutation of metals. But whether 
this can be shown at present or not, it seems in evidence 
from diverse quarters that all differences of chemical 
elements find their common cause in the mechanics of 
the corpuscles. The chemical mechanics of the atoms 
form the molecules and evolve their properties, these 



112 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

raise the mechanical complex a stage higher and we 
have protoplasm and the evolution of physiological 
action and the coordination therewith, the function of 
life. We now have the germinal vesicle evolved, which 
Darwin says is common to all organic beings so that 
every individual organic being starts from one common 
origin. The discovery of corpuscles and their place and 
functions in nature has carried the unification of all 
differences apparently to the final limits. And now the 
further effort may be to confirm the present epochal 
discoveries and lead the further quest of determining 
the particular form of structure that functions the 
different kinds of matter and that yields life, feeling 
and consciousness; and what is the structural difference 
between the cell that develops into a plant or animal, 
into mouse or man, and whether at a certain stage of 
cell life what it shall become depends not on its source, 
but on its environment and its supplies. Some men of 
science have long felt that at the bottom of all differ- 
ences there is one unifying substance whose necessary 
eternal self -existence necessitates all changes and orderly 
functioned products, and properties that suddenly 
emerge from what could not have been anticipated as 
their causes. We start from nature's eternal uncaused, 
imperishable, and universal units of material sub- 
stance which differ only numerically, and which in com- 
plex positional and motile interrelations among them- 
selves become the source of all difference of the 70 or 80 
chemical elements. Thus much may be said to be within 
the clear vision of science as a fact, but not its how or 
why. We are learning that infinite differences come from 
infinitesimal masses of matter in innumerable numbers, 
in complex mechanics of positions and motions. Here 
lies the potential essence and vis viva of all difference 
whatever, and not hidden in the nature of substance. All 
possibilities and actualities may be said to be involved 
in matter, motion, space and time. All properties and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER , 113 

qualities are coordinate with certain mechanics. Chem- 
istry, physics and all life's processes and realization lie 
at bottom in mechanics. "By a necessity engendered and 
justified by science, I cross the boundary of the experi- 
mental evidence, and discern in that matter which we 
in our ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstand- 
ing our professed reverence for its Creator, have hither- 
to covered with approbrium, the promise and potency of 
all terrestrial life." Tyndall Belfast Address. 

Here is a quasi-recognition of the creation of mat- 
ter, probably as an implication of discredit upon those 
who profess to believe in the creation of matter and 
could not accept the truth as he held it, of his emphatic 
assertion, viz: that in matter he "discerns the promise 
and potency of all terrestrial life." Surely the creation 
of matter is not and cannot of "necessity be engender- 
ed" or "justified by science," nor can it be reached by 
4 ' crossing the boundary of experimental evidence. ' ' Nor 
is creation what he declares he discerns beyond the 
boundary. There is no experimental evidence of crea- 
tion. No experiment gives any intimation of the crea- 
tion of an atom of matter, much less of the unnumbered 
■orbs of space. Experiment gives no intimation that 
matter is coming into or going out of existence, but on 
the contrary, that it persists in one abiding quantity. 
So that the "conservation of matter and energy" has 
hecome a recognized universal formula of physics. Nor 
does he assert that science in any manner or degree rec- 
ognizes the creation of matter, nor could he in self-con- 
sistency, being a "zealous advocate of the doctrine of 
materialism." What he asserts is that science implies 
that in matter is "the promise and potency of all ter- 
restrial life." Theology asserts the creation of matter. 
But science affirms neither the creation of matter nor 
the truth of theology. When man is free from supersti- 
tion, fetichism and idolatry, and becomes truly and 
wholly scientific as the basis on which he claims to know, 



114 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and the ground of his inferential faith, he will interpret 
the universe as eternal uncreated, and its universal order 
not determined or directed by intelligence and choice. 
But as it is uncaused in its substance and in the condi- 
tions of space and time, without which there could be 
no substance, and these are the background and impose 
upon and measure all things, so the mode of orderly ex- 
isting and orderly change, and what every effect shall be 
is of necessity involved in eternal substance and its 
conditions, as their being and existence is uncaused, the 
one eternal uncaused cause necessitates all effects. So is 
the universe of necessity everywhere interrelated, there- 
fore mechanical, consequently mathematical and intelli- 
gible. 

Intelligence and choice are the product of nature, 
not nature the product of intelligence and choice. Con- 
sidering the universe as one whole, as it is, the place and 
use of intelligence is very limited. There is no ground 
to hold it to be co-extensive with matter. And to our 
earth or any other material sphere,, it must be limited to 
the animate part of it, for can there be intelligence 
where there is no life ? And this is probably too extend- 
ed an area by the whole vegetative kingdom. And Prof- 
fessor Loeb's researches show it to be too large by a 
portion of the animal kingdom, where it has been sup- 
posed the acts are directed by intelligence, he shows that 
the acts are induced by the physical stimulus of light 
and temperature, as truly so as by these stimulants flow- 
ers turn toAvards the sun and close their petals at night. 
Hop and bean vines are particular which way they wind 
their spirals round their supports. And is this an in- 
telligent act? 

Reverting to Tyndall's Rhetorical apostrophe, no, 
"the promise and potency" of all becomings, does not 
lie in matter per se, but in matter, its motions and the 
positional relations of its parts among themselves and 
the environment. This as local and universal, seems to 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 115 

me to state the whole case and every case. Man cannot 
by his intelligence manifest stronger evidence of design 
and purposed plan and deftness in working it out, than 
inanimate nature shows everywhere in chemistry, in 
physics, in crystallization, in germination, in the moving 
mechanics of the heavens. And if man would do any- 
thing he must interrogate nature for his methods. For 
nature does whatever man does. And her causal apti- 
tudes and exactitudes in the inanimate universe are not 
less marked where intelligence and choice as we know 
and feel conscious of them cannot be shown as exercis- 
ing any agency. But Hylozoism is accepted by some. 
As an explanation, hylozoism is preposterously absurd. 
For some of nature's calculations or intuitions, where 
we can see no evidence of animation — dead matter ap- 
parently, far surpasses any human example of insight 
or calculation. It is generally conceded that the universe 
is one system of existence. And it is self-evident that 
there is and must be some mutual relativity, some order 
among all differences in nature. For it is impossible 
there should be no order, no agreeing relativity what- 
ever. Nature's disagreeing is undergirded, and over- 
arched and interrelated with agreements by which all 
products are brought forth. It manifests prevailing 
tendencies. We clearly see and there must be exact and 
universal order in space positions, and in motions in 
space and time order, for intelligence cannot produce 
disorder, here, nor indeed can it anywhere either pro- 
duce or hinder order. For absolutely no order is an im- 
possible conception and an impossible achievement, or 
any other order than there is,independent of there being 
any intelligence or will. The laws of gravitation, of 
affinity and repulsion, of the production and dessemina- 
tion of light, of specific gravity, of temperature, of liqui- 
faction and consolidation, of chemical combinations and 
the emergence therefrom of property, quality and of 
life, from bare awareness to the highest human capacity 



116 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and attainment, all are reached by matter and its moving 
mechanics, under the conditions of space and time or- 
ders. And all these laws of nature are nothing but phys- 
ical interrelations and their legitimate sequences. 

We cannot speak of life and intelligence, feeling or 
consciousness, without thinking of our own as a stand- 
ard of comparison , nor personality, nor how matter 
could be moved by a materially embodied consciousness, 
without holding up ourselves as exemplars. Nor can we 
imagine an embodied consciousness and still an entitive 
being. Nor intelligence except as belonging to, and 
sharply limited to living, and organized matter of a high 
and complex order of structure. And the capacity for 
intelligence seems proportional to the complexity of ma- 
terial structure, especially nervous; and capacity may 
be increased in quantity, variety and deftness of func- 
tion by the proper exercise of its motions, expended 
either on muscular or thought movements. Supreme 
place given to intelligence as guiding and controlling all 
orders and all movements must carry with it all power 
involved in universal kinematics and dynamics. As in- 
telligence and intelligent power so far as we know it, is 
limited to living organized individual beings and each 
one separated from every other, and all analyzable into 
one common compound chemical substance, can it be 
said that we have reason to hold that life belongs to 
matter per se, to its atoms and unorganized masses? 
when to that portion of nature denominated animate, we 
distinguish the properties and capacities called living 
and are not manifested in that called inanimate? The 
substance that manifests all kinds and degrees of life 
and intelligence is one chief combination, and contains 
at most only about fourteen of the eighty chemical ele- 
ments, and mainly only four. It will not be generally con- 
tended, I presume, that intelligence is more extended in 
the universe than is life. Further, have we reason to 
hold that chemical, physical and crystalline structures, 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 117 

the positional relations and motions of the solar system 
and the stellar motions and masses, atom to atom, mole- 
cule to molecule, the separate motion of each atom and 
each molecule, in its own direction and velocity, and each 
and all in ordered interrelations, were once in thought, 
plan or idea only? And then, when and where were not, 
for when and where must be created as parts of the 
universe. Where creation is affirmed, it is a fatal omis- 
sion to exclude space and time, from creation, which 
from the necessity of thought cannot be affirmed to have 
been created and still affirm the creation of matter. 
" Truth," says Cudworth, "is the most unbending, and 
most uncompliable, the most necessary, firm, immutable 
and adamantine thing in the world." Time is the meas- 
ure and condition of all change, events, quiesence, and 
space the measure and condition of all concreteness, 
thought, feeling, action, life and death, for they must 
be somewhere. Therefore, if we are to have creation it 
will not do to account for the necessary conditions to 
creation from being created. It will hardly be contend- 
ed that space and time are the creator, or the attributes 
of the creator, though I cannot see how the affirmation 
of their necessity as conditions of his existence and ac- 
tion can be any more avoided than of ours. If we allege 
existence and action, no matter of what kind or name, 
it cannot appeal to our intelligence except under the 
conditions of space and time. It is absurd to speak of 
existence independent of these conditions. If these in- 
finite and universal verities, measures, and conditions, 
that necessitate order in all things that can be affirmed 
to exist or act, spirit and consciousness no less than mat- 
ter and energy, can be eternal and uncaused; and it 
seems impossible that any intelligent person can believe 
or assert that existence objective or subjective can be ex- 
empt from the conditions of space or time, or could have 
originated these conditions. For though it may be held 
that consciousness does not in itself directly occupy 



118 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

space, but if it is, it must be somewhere and as it belongs 
to the body and is in the body, therefore it is in space. 
Space affects consciousness through the vision, though it 
is not itself visible, and through the touch though it is 
not tangible. I cannot accept Kant 's dictum that ' ' Space 
is not a conception which has been derived from out- 
ward experience." And here follow the reasons for his 
view. "For, in order that certain sensations may relate 
to something without me (that is, to something which 
occupies a different part of space from that in which I 
am) the representation of space must already exist as a 
foundation. Consequently, the representation of space 
cannot be borrowed from the relations of external 
phenomena through experience; but, on the contrary, 
this external experience is itself only possible through 
the said antecedent representation. Space then, is a nec- 
essary representation a priori, which serves for the foun- 
dation of all external intuitions." The representation 
can mean no more than a latent capacity at birth to be- 
come affected by the ever present, necessary and uni- 
versal conditions of all existence whatever. As soon as 
our eyes open the vision encounters objects in the midst 
of a space-environment, or emptiness, which never varies 
in kind or extent. We are as profoundly if not as early 
affected by the limitless extent of space as by the limited 
extent of objects in space. A limitless negation in the 
midst of which we live and move and have our being, and 
soon learn that it is the boundary and condition of all 
our eyes discern or hands can touch, and the length, 
breadth and thickness of any object we can measure has 
its exact equals in space measurements and the pure 
mathematics deals altogether directly with space and 
time as if they were as truly objective as are objects of 
vision or touch, and by a necessary inference one sees 
that he has dealt indirectly but as exactly as with ob- 
jects in space, and all this is as truly a matter of experi- 
ence as is the acquaintance of one's neighbors. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 119 

Discussion 31. We have before said that space is not 
an existence. Yet it is far from being nothing that can 
be, or need be, taken account of. While it is not exist- 
ence, it is the where of all existence whatever. When 
anything is declared to exist, matter, spirit, thought, 
feeling, function, event, space and time are presupposed 
as their necessary where and when. If matter can be 
averred to have been created, or to have begun existing, 
neither space nor time can be so averred without uttering 
a manifest absurdity. And this is a prime distinction of 
what may be averred and what can not be averred with- 
out self-contradiction. It is possible to imagine one's 
self to be the only object in existence, or rather to with- 
hold all image-making of sense-objects. But unless we 
can abolish self -consciousness we cannot expunge the 
consciousness of space and time, nor identify our self 
with space and time, nor feel that they have their source 
in us, nor have subjective validity alone, nor obliterate 
.from our conviction that their validity is objective, even 
more clearly than is their subjective validity. Space and 
time are in the vivid conviction of the mathematician as 
objective facts, as he measures the earth's orbit, the dis- 
tance to the sun, and calculates the time of the next 
eclipse of the sun and the portion of the earth where it 
will be total. And the artificer, when measuring space 
with tape-line, chain, or rule, has no notion that he is 
engaged in something that is akin to and has no more 
objective validity than his emotions, nor like his emo- 
tions where there is no sentient intelligence does he 
believe there is neither space nor objects in space any 
more than there are emotions. 

Berkeley maintains, according to Kant, ' ' that space, 
together with all the objects of which it is the insepara- 
ble condition, is a thing which is in itself impossible, and 
that consequently the objects in space are mere products 
of the imagination." Kant's Critique. Meiklejohn's 
Translation, page 166. Kant's philosophy teaches that 



120 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

there are two kinds of knowledge, or intuitions, or ways 
of obtaining information, the sensuous or empirical, or 
through the senses as the result of experience, and the 
a priori, the unacquired by experience, or that which is 
already in us as native and as a necessary antecedent 
condition to any possible experience. That which corres- 
ponds to the sensation in a sensible object, he calls its 
matter, and that w r hich causes the object to be perceived 
as arranged in a certain order, he calls its form. The 
matter of all phenomena is alone given in experience, 
but the form is already in the mind before experience, or 
a priori. Space is the subjective form of all external 
things, and is in us, not separate from us, but a property 
of mind itself. The time is also a priori, in and of us, and 
not without us, nor independent of us, and is involved in 
mind. Neither time nor space is of itself verity or valid- 
ity. Were there no sensitivity and intelligence, time 
would not be. ' ' Time is nothing but the form of the in- 
ternal sense, i. e., of our intuitions of ourselves and of 
our internal state." "Time is simply a subjective condi- 
tion of our (human) intuition which is always sensuous, 
that is, so far as we are affected by objects, but by itself, 
apart from the subject, nothing." The next sentence 
seems in conflict with this. "Nevertheless, with respect 
to all phenomena, i. e., all things which can come within 
our experience, time is necessarily objective." And the 
next sentence qualifies the last. ' ' We cannot say that all 
things are in time, because, if Ave speak of things in gen- 
eral nothing is said about the manner of intuition, which 
is the real condition under which time enters into our 
representation of things. If we say that all objects of 
sensuous intuitions are in time, then such a proposition 
has its full objective validity and a priori universality." 
The teaching seems to be this : space and time and objects 
and events in space and time have in themselves no 
actuality, no validity, apart from a sensuous conscious- 
ness that appreciates and requires these conditions or 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 121 

forms, which indeed are attributes of mind. "What we 
insist on, therefore, is the empirical reality of time." 
"What we deny is that time has any claim on absolute 
reality, so that without taking into account the form of 
our sensuous condition, it should not by itself be a con- 
dition or quality inherent in things." These views seem 
to carry with them this consequence, that the material 
and phenomenal universe depend for their actual ex- 
istence and ongoing upon sentient consciousness to ob- 
serve and be affected by them. "Space is nothing but 
the form of phenomena of all external senses ; it is a sub- 
jective condition of our sensibility. It is therefore from 
the human standpoint only that we can speak of space, 
external objects, etc. Space does not represent any qual- 
ity of objects by themselves, or objects in their relations 
to one another, i. e., space does not represent any deter- 
mination which is inherent in the objects themselves, and 
would remain even if all subjective conditions of intui- 
tions were removed. ' ' 

Is the earth and stellar bodies dependent on our 
sensitivity for their existence, and space and time for 
their validity? All objective reality is made contingent 
on the subject. There is nothing until there is an appre- 
ciative consciousness of it. Surely the scientific world 
can never accept such philosophy. Subjective nature (a 
functional appearance of the objective) is not the cause 
of the external world nor of its manner of existing. It 
simply learns these facts through sense intuitions and 
critical reflection. Kant exalts the subjective and de- 
preciates the objective. But he is not always self-con- 
sistent, as we shall see later. "Hitherto," he says, "it has 
been supposed that all our knowledge must conform to 
the objects ; but under that supposition all attempts to es- 
tablish anything about them a priori, by means of con- 
cepts, and thus to enlarge our knowledge, have come to 
nothing. The experiment therefore, ought to be made, 
whether we should not succeed better with the problems 



122 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must con- 
form to our mode of cognition, for this would better 
agree with the demanded possibility of an a priori knowl- 
edge of them, which is to settle something about objects, 
before they are given us." "It sounds no doubt very 
strange and absurd that nature should have to conform 
to our subectjive apperception, nay, be dependent on it, 
with respect to her laws. But if we consider that what 
we call nature is nothing but a whole of phenomena, not 
a thing by itself, but a number of representations in our 
soul, we shall no longer be surprised that we only see her 
through the fundamental faculty of all our knowledge, 
namely, the transcendental apperception." Appercep- 
tion with Kant is self-consciousness, and transcendental 
is the a priori. "All empirical consciousness has a neces- 
sary relation to a transcendental consciousness, which 
precedes all single experiences, namely, the consciousness 
of my own self, as the original apperception. This pure, 
original and unchangeable consciousness I shall call 
transcendental apperception." "The numerical unity of 
that apperception therefore forms the a priori condition 
of all concepts. ' ' If our intuitions had to conform to the 
conditions of objects, I do not see how we could know 
anything of them a priori. * * * I must therefore 
even before objects are given to me, presuppose the rules 
of the understanding as existing within me a priori; 
these rules being expressed in concepts a priori, to which 
all objects of experience must necessarily conform, and 
with which thej^ must agree. ' ' 

Kant's theory in the part of the Critique I am now 
considering seems to be, that were there no consciousness 
of the material space and time universe, there would be 
no material space and time universe. If this expression 
were intended to mean only "to us," they would be 
truisms so bald as to indicate simplicity in a learned 
treatise. But as it is, consciousness, the pupil and prod- 
uct of objective nature, determines that nature is and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 123 

Avhat and how she is. "Objects must conform to our 
mode of cognition/' Under some dualistic systems of 
philosophy, as that of Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz 
and some others, "Knowledge implies even the con- 
trariety of subject and object," says Sir W. Hamilton. 
As by these philosophers mind and matter can have no 
direct relation with each other, and to effect the knowl- 
edge of one by the other, the Deity must mediate. In 
reading the Critique one feels uncertain whether Kant 
was really a dualist or Unitarian. But if he maintains 
constancy to either scheme, it is to Unitarianism. He was 
an a priorist, not empiricist. A distinguished writer has 
said : ■ ' Naturalists cannot explain the world, they can- 
not penetrate to its first causes. It is absolutely incom- 
prehensible to human reason how and whereby, if a sin- 
gle substance makes up the content of the whole world, 
the changes or transformations of this substance could 
either first originate or continue to take place." The 
question might first be asked, if two or many substances 
made up the content of the world, their origin or trans- 
formation could then be accounted for? The naturalist 
is not confronted with the question of the origin of sub- 
stance, or matter, or motion, or space or time. A propo- 
sition that is self-evident, or a demonstrated theorem 
satisfies all demands of the reason. Something exists. 
Then something must eternally exist. For non-existence 
cannot be the cause of existence. Neither can anything 
be its own cause for beginning to exist. Whatever exists 
without beginning to exist, must continue existing with- 
out ceasing to exist. Here is a necessary postu- 
late of existence; or the theorem of eternal existence 
demonstrated, unless the major premis — "something 
exists" is denied. I care not to argue against such ab- 
surdity. What exists in persistent quantity of substance, 
must have a mode of existing as persistent in quantity, 
distinguishable from the substance existing. It is the 
universal conviction of reason and of experience, so far 



124 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

as experience can go, that substance or matter from atom 
to utmost all, is in motion, notwithstanding Zeno's proof 
that motion is impossible. And it is true that statics has 
no right of being without the presupposition of motion. 
For statics is strain or stress as local hindrance of mo- 
tion. For motion is the universal and necessary mode of 
existing of all matter. Matter is not a contingent exist- 
ence. It is eternal and therefore has no cause for exist- 
ing beyond itself. This is not a gratuitous assumption, 
as we have shown eternal existence is a necessary postu- 
late, or a demonstrated theorem. And substance must 
exist either in motion or not in motion. It is in proof 
that it exists everywhere in motion. Then it is self- 
moving as well as self -existing. Matter, motion, space 
and time, are the four-fold eternal ground of all else. 
Space and time give the natural necessity that all chang- 
es, combinations, separations, functions, properties, 
qualities and states are and must be in interrelated or- 
der. We can suppose no beginning, and no primal no 
order, then no intelligent power that put the no order 
into order. Then the saying ascribed to the Greek phi- 
losopher, Anaxagoras: "All things were mixed up to- 
gether. Then mind came and arranged them all in 
distinct order," cannot be held as true. That what we 
denominate intelligence determines universal order can- 
not be maintained. But the order everywhere observed 
of related positions and motions of all things and events 
in nature, are natural, not supernatural. For what the 
Greek said : ' ' All things were mixed up together ' ' or 
were in no order among themselves, is not self -evidently 
true, and is without data for logical or physical infer- 
ence, and antagonizes manifest data for contradictory 
inference. And the causal rise of life, consciousness 
and intelligence, appears to be as much the function of 
matter in interrelated combinations and motions acting 
and re-acting both against and in harmony with a cer- 
tain environment, which life, etc., have no existence in 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 125 

the separated constituents; as electricity or acidity have 
their causal rise in material relations. Intelligence is 
first effect, then perhaps a causal factor. The one most 
general cause of universal order and satisfactory to the 
God-religious consciousness and to those who have be- 
stowed little or no thought upon the question, is the 
verbal supposition of a creating and order arranging 
personal Deity, either above and separate from, or im- 
minent and diffused everywhere in nature, whose exist- 
ence and creative power can be only a gratuitous assump- 
tion of words, for no power of the imagination can pic- 
ture or realize the truth of WT>rds. Consequently this 
explains nothing, is no finality, is neither intelligible nor 
a necessary assumption, and suggests questions concern- 
ing the existence of the assumed Deity, which for their 
answers leaves us regressing in a line of creators of cre- 
ators ad infinitum, or the verbally assumed creator must 
be assumed to be the eternal existence which necessity 
compels us to postulate. But of this gratuitously assum- 
ed existence we have no knowledge ; which we consciously 
touch neither by sense nor reason, nor by necessary aver- 
ment. And we make the stupid affirmation that the 
unknown, and, we may say, unknowable, has achieved 
the impossible feat of creating the material universe, 
space and time. To the materialist matter is the eternal, 
quantitative, persistent existence, that is, the necessary 
primal postulate. And by inevitable implication, eternal 
self-existence must have some mode or modes of existing, 
and ,we may say, in motion or not in motion. And be- 
cause matter is not known to be anywhere in absolute 
quiesence, but everywhere known it is known to be in 
motion, and according to the known order of the cosmos, 
must be, motion is held to be the eternal mode of existing 
of matter. Energy or force is matter in motion, and is 
quantified to the sum of matter. 

Discussion 32. The laws of interrelations of matter 
as to its mechanics of building by any mode of attraction 



126 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

or otherwise, whether of corpuscles, atoms, molecules, or 
masses, accord and must accord with the laws or proper- 
ties of space. And any changes in the interrelations 
involving motion follow the laws of space and time. 
Motion no doubt follows the law of least resistance. All 
this assures universal order. This means that eternal 
existence of which we know something and our bodies 
are part, and eternal necessity, and not intelligence 
which is partial and individual, nor arbitrary creative 
power which is nowhere known, need not be assumed, 
is inconceivable, and impossible as known fact, are under 
and causal of all that begins or transpires, not only in 
the inanimate but in the animate world. Intelligence 
and free choice w T hich under a superficial view seem 
arbitrary individualities, with imminent powers, are 
strictly obedient to laws outside the individual which 
nevertheless include the individual, as cosmic gravity 
which includes the stone, causes the fall of the unsup- 
ported stone. It is the eternal underived nature of mat- 
ter to be in motion and not at rest. Intelligent power 
as Ave are conscious of it (and we cannot conceive any 
other) cannot be intelligently held to be the cause of the 
existence of the universe, or of ourselves, or of the uni- 
versal order of existence and change. Speculative phi- 
losophy guided by scientific verification of phenomena 
and necessary averment, lead to the declaration of the 
materialistic-mechanical system of the universe, uncreat- 
ed and eternally persistent and ongoing. And all differ- 
ences of states and functional properties arise out of 
positional and motive mechanics of one matter in its 
forms of corpuscles, atoms, molecules and masses, and 
others, if there be other forms. We cannot speak of 
primal or first form of matter. First has no place or 
relation to what is and never began to be, and is ever 
changing but never in its quantity. Perhaps it was 
Aristotle who said: "All things that become must be- 
come something out of something. ' ' This is an axiomatic 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 127 

truth, and is the converse of the axiom, that from noth- 
ing something cannot be made to become. All matter 
from its nature to move and its self-attractions, takes 
form or state, but differing according to positional inter- 
relations and motions, and to external inducing con- 
ditions. In all matter there is native architectonic, 
through its motions, its attractions, and combining prop- 
erties. All living matter takes on specialized architect- 
onic types, and builds its forms, for living matter is 
localized, individualized, in small groups of organogenet- 
ic chemical elements — carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen 
and sulphur, which we are told by the organic chemist 
are found invariably in all living things. With these are 
generally (but not always) associated phosphorus, potas 
sium, calcium, magnesium and iron. Here are represented 
the two chemical divisions of matter, metaloids and met- 
als. Five, or perhaps nine, of the seventy-eight atomic 
differences which are chemically grouped of their own 
native tendencies in exactly related numbers, and as in- 
animate, immediately take on life as a property or func- 
tion. On the special grouping of these particular mater- 
ial elements into what is known as plasma or protoplasm, 
life arises, becomes a property, an attribute, an invariable 
concomitant, of the material-chemical mechanics involved 
with the adaptive nature of these elements. This must be 
supposed since no others are found in living organisms. 
But mainly from the mechanics, because these same ma- 
terials otherwise associated or combined, have not as a 
consequence the phenomena of life. And a slight derange- 
ment of this interrelated complex in the higher orders of 
living beings, renders life's processes either abnormal or 
extinguishes them altogether. And the elements return 
to the inanimate and inorganic realm of nature, without 
loss in quantity of each element or of aptitude to enter 
again into like relations with the like functions of life. 
How contrasted is the permanence of matter with 
ephemerous individual life ! 



128 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Life is an exquisite architect and builder. As a ten- 
ant it builds its own tenement and vitalizes its materials, 
but does not shape them. Tenant and tenement are iden- 
tified. They are one, yet two. At some points of the liv- 
ing structure of the higher animals no foreign invasion 
can interfere with the living mechanics without render- 
ing abnormal or obliterating the processes and being of 
life, and wrecking the tenement. Another evidence that 
all life is one in kind differing only in degree, besides 
the fact that the same elements similarly grouped or con- 
structed are causative of universal life, heterogeneous 
elements, or of dissimilar groups of perhaps some of the 
same kind, entering into the living organism anywhere 
along the line of life in either kingdom, acts as a poison 
to the life. Evolution is here most manifest. We dis- 
cover that the organic proceeds from the inorganic, life 
from the non-living, the internal from the external, the 
subject from the object. The lowest order of life is hard- 
ly distinguished from the non-living. The highest in ad- 
vancing from the lowest have been aeons long. The low- 
est forms of life, the Protista, are regarded as neither 
vegetal nor animal. And this harmonizes with the con- 
viction of the universal and ever working of evolution. 
And it is not held to be applicable to the chemical ele- 
ments, since the atoms are shown to be compounds of one 
essential matter, differing only numerically, the corpus- 
cles. The differentiation of what before was homo- 
geneous, the becoming one of what was two or many, or 
many of what was one, and the inherence of properties, 
capacities, or functions, by physical, chemical or physi- 
ological combinations or processes, where such did not 
inhere in the separate constituents or in immediately 
previous combinations, are evolutional or developmental 
processes and products, and are everywhere and always 
going on. And they consist of matter in motion taking 
on new related positions. The whole scientific assignable 
cause of the new inhering properties, qualities, func- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 129 

tions, etc., are the mechanics of matter, its interrelated 
positions and motions. And these structures and their 
moving atoms, with a favoring environment, necessitate 
or legitimate all the phenomena, functions, properties, 
etc., of the inanimate, animate and psychic world. The 
physics and chemistry of today have been developed out 
of material conditions of which we have now no known 
examples. There could have been no chemical action 
when the matter of the whole solar system was at a de- 
gree of heat that reduced all its matter to gases if not to 
corpuscles, and the atoms themselves probably developed 
from these conditions. How wonderfully different is the 
behavior or are the properties and functions of the same 
identical specimen of matter as it is in the gaseous, liquid 
or solid state. Oxygen and hydrogen, the two elements 
which by their chemical union form water, can now be 
solidified. In this state they neither resemble their prop- 
erties as gases, or as water when combined. They behave 
as differently as do water and sulphuric acid, or ice and 
lunar caustic. The solar system itself is believed from 
many evidences of it, to have been formed from a neb- 
ulous state of its matter by the action of known laws. By 
organic evolution is meant that all the forms of plant and 
animal life on the earth today, have not been created, but 
evolved from regressively simpler forms and functions 
until the most complicated structure and function find 
their remote parentage and environment in a past less 
and less advanced in complexity, until there is reached a 
chemical nitrogenous carbon compound of the albumin- 
ous group known as plasm or protoplasm, homogeneous 
or structureless, an "organism without organs," which 
is seen to be alive, for it moves, takes in food, performs 
digestion, assimilation, excretion, grows and propagates 
its kind. As there is no differentiation of parts in this 
organism, there is no distinctively prepared structure for 
expert specialized function, but all parts perform equally 
well all the offices of life, which are the most rudimen- 



130 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tary known, the first effort of dawning life, of living- 
matter to reach the psychic state. All this implies sensi- 
tivity to surroundings, which becomes the new internal 
center of conscious personality. And we have no date 
for a scientific inference other than the sensitivity is 
generated or caused by, is consequent upon, the action 
and re-action of the chemically complex and living 
plasma and environment. But this sensitivity need not 
be supposed to extend to the degree of self-consciousness. 
It is an advance upon simple chemical sensitivity, which 
may be assumed to account for the exact numbers and 
measured volumes that some certain chemical elements 
under some definite conditions enter into union with cer- 
tain other elements. There must be a reason for the con- 
stancy and exactitude of this mutual behavior. We may 
say it depends upon the constitution of matter, which is 
very true, but there is nothing definite in this. The in- 
tellect does not as yet perceive what the precise reason is. 
Shall Ave say it is a native, or acquired relation through 
evolution? We may say that probably the chemical ele- 
ments being formed by diverse unions of the corpuscles, 
and different material substances being formed and their 
properties evolved from unions of chemical elements, 
these classes of affinitive unions have their basis in, or 
are modifications of universal gravitation. And gravita- 
tion is the general expression of the universal and eter- 
nal and necessary mode of the existing of matter in mo- 
tion, rather than absolute quiescence, one or the other 
being a necessary affirmation, since there is no third sup- 
position possible. Motion and not quiescence must be 
held as the eternal and universal and necessary mode of 
the existing of matter. And as matter in mechanical 
unions and dissolutions, is always proceeding in exact in- 
terrelations, which imply the utmost exactitude of order, 
these mathematical interrelations of positions and mo- 
tions are causal of all functional differences whatsoever. 
Evolution appears to extend to inorganic matter no less 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 131 

than to organic, and is the previous and preparatory 
stage of the organic which is the state for the further 
evolution of life and consciousness. While we know that 
the organic reverts to the inorganic, and the same ele- 
ments may again and again assume the organic complex 
and evolve life and consciousness, we have no reason to 
affirm that the identity of the consciousness will be pre- 
served. But the evolution of the inorganic may, for any- 
thing that seems improbable, be carried into the organic 
and resolved back into the inorganic, without impair- 
ment of the aptitude indefinitely, and all inorganic prop- 
erties conserved in number, quantity and intensity. But 
consciousness is quality individualized, is not susceptible 
of logical subdivision, is not measured by volume, is not 
a problem in geometry, is counted one by one but cannot 
be duplicated; its essence is feeling, self -hood. It is not 
implied that there are not many degrees of evolution of 
the inorganic before the organic is reached, and life and 
consciousness evolved therefrom. 

Evolution stands opposed to creationism and founds 
on the recognition, that matter is the eternal and un- 
caused existence that of necessity must be postulated, 
and its unoriginated and eternal mode of existing in mo- 
tion and the consequent and ever continuing change, with 
the necessary emergence from the mechanics of positions 
and motions, of all properties, qualities and functions, 
as is seen in all the sciences of animate and inanimate 
nature. And the laws of space and time which no one 
can intelligently suppose had a creation or beginning, 
nece&sarity assure mathematical order everywhere and 
always. And while we cannot and need not suppose that 
life is eternal and uncaused, we must at least grant that 
for the earth it had its origin on the earth and for cosmic 
reasons alone, since we know not and have no need to as- 
sume other, and if assumed the assumption is gratuitous 
and absurd, for we cannot without absurdity, suppose a 
beyond, out of, or other than, the cosmic universe. 



132 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Discussion 33. The recently discovered and accepted 
fact by those best able to judge, that the chemical ele- 
ments are compound bodies, and their constituent parts, 
the corpuscles, are all alike in form, weight, mass and 
nature, the naked stuff, probably, of which all worlds are 
made and their wonders evolved; of man and all he is 
and can be developed into; the underlying persistent 
quantity, — material, whose unbegun and endlessly con- 
tinued motions, collisions, colligations and dissolutions, 
neither weary nor waste, nor put out of aptitude for 
their repetition, and whose complex mechanics of num- 
bers, positions and motions, with their nature to become, 
are the sole causals of all power, difference, sameness, 
continuance and change, whatsoever that science has yet 
discovered. 

Life! How and under what circumstances can we 
conceive life to arise? I do not believe in hylozoism, 
though this would be an easy explanation of the phe- 
nomenal universe, with some other as arbitrary assump- 
tions, if it should be held that the intelligence of every 
particle of matter is all comprehensive, with the univer- 
sal agreement among them, with power to execute, that 
all events and changes should transpire when and as they 
do transpire. It would serve all the convenience of a 
quietus upon thought-exercises under difficulties, as does 
the untenable assumption of infinite intelligence and 
power massed in a personality and placed either in every 
point of space and atom of matter, or apart and distinct 
from the universe, but exercising in and upon it, directly 
or indirectly, all its phenomenal changes. In some sense 
life may be said to be potential in matter that has be- 
come certain states and forms, as capable under some 
further changes and circumstances, to develope or evolve 
the function and property of life. But only a few, not 
more than twelve or fifteen of the seventy or eighty of 
the known forms and states of matter, has the chemist 
found to take any part in producing or sustaining life. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 133 

Therefore life cannot be said to belong to, or to be a 
property of matter itself. And matter as substance, is 
that which exists by itself, is not a product, but stands 
under all things that become and cease to be; is that 
which receives modifications, performs function, evolves 
property or results in something else ; but is the unbegun 
and eternal unwasting quantity which is neither, but pre- 
supposes space and time, and whose mode of existing is 
motion, which is universal energy or force, and makes 
possible all becoming and ceasing. It is matter that is 
alive, that is conscious, that thinks and feels; is the 
flower, the fruit, the tree, the animal, the man ; that dies 
and lives again. But these statements will be denied by 
many, perhaps by the majority of present-day thinkers 
and non-thinkers, for they are in harmony with our re- 
ligious teaching which largely overrides and dominates 
the scientific, without being itself scientific. Life has its 
approaching initiative in physics and chemistry, and is 
no more a non-commenced and endlessly enduring entity, 
and has being in and of itself, than is water or the glob- 
ular form of the earth. The analogues of life and its de- 
velopments are the properties of chemical combinations 
in their genesis. Water is the form and has the proper- 
tie's, not of oxygen or hydrogen as gases, but of their 
mechanics when in chemical union. Chemical combina- 
tions are conceivable only as constructions of matter in 
certain interrelated positions and motions. And here 
are our only data for all the emergent properties of the 
combinations of the seventy or eighty different kinds of 
atomic matter. And these and their properties according 
to the present foremost scientific outlook are but the in- 
terrelated positions and motions of infinite numbers of 
one undifferentiated matter. To put it as a universal 
proposition: all differences of phenomena whatever, in- 
cluding the conscious perception thereof and reasoning 
thereon, result from the mechanics of infinite number of 
pieces of one homogeneous matter in motions. The order 



134 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and cause near or remote of the phenomena of inanimate 
and animate nature are not determined by, or take place 
through, intelligent initiative purpose, or proceed or re- 
sult through means of intelligent power. Intelligent 
power and purpose in the universe as we know and feel 
such power and purpose to be, in and through the mat- 
ter of our bodies (and we cannot intelligently affirm any 
other) are but infinitesimal marks upon the universe. 
There is no evidence sufficient to warrant belief that con- 
scious intelligence will and ability to think belongs to an 
immaterial entity, called spirit, located in our bodies but 
exists independently of them, and constitutes the real self 
or I, which appears to be the prevailing religious teach- 
ing. This is not intended to antagonize what has been 
previously said, except as to the immaterial entity, of 
which we know nothing and is but a negation of matter. 
Jf our personal life continues after the dissolution of the 
body and in spite of it, it is much more probably living 
matter that has been wrought upon by the present living 
organism and cosmic forces into a state and form adapt- 
ed to retain life and its power to think and act, not pos- 
sibly a hundred years, but indefinitely, under an en- 
vironment different from the present. But intelligence 
is the grandest as it is perhaps the latest of nature's 
great achievements, the partial and advancing knowledge 
of itself, emerging from and embodied in its most com- 
plex groupings of matter and motions. Then can we say 
that nature has evolved a false consciousness of herself; 
that she has not made herself known to herself as she 
really is, but only as she is not; has not presented her- 
self to herself, nor stood forth in the illumination of in- 
telligence to be what she has declared in universal under- 
tone, viz : that she is and must everywhere be, intelligi- 
ble, because everywhere interrelated in her substance in 
definite positions and motions? For in the warp and 
woof of her very self, cast into the web of her forms and 
their functions there must be involved not only a form 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 135 

and pattern, but her very self. She cannot self-impeach 
herself in heart and deed to her very heart and deed. 
Nor on the other hand has nature constituted human in- 
telligence in its past and present feebleness of grasp and 
infinitesimal reach, and in its sum holding the merest 
fragment of nature's intelligibility, competent to say 
(and this the last word) if there were no sensitivity, that 
is, had not nature developed a sensitivity of itself in it- 
self, there would be neither space nor time nor objects: 
"that nature has to conform to our aperception, nay, is 
dependent on it, with respect to her laws." (Kant) 
There is a profound truth in the apparent absurdity that 
nature must conform to our apperception, that is not in 
harmony with Kant's philosophy, viz : that as nature has 
caused its self-recognition it cannot be otherwise than she 
has adapted her self-intelligence to her intelligibility. 
But nature's activities, except a few by the higher or- 
ders of animals, take place without evidence of initiative 
or directive intelligence either in the activities them- 
selves or remotely from them. But there must be reasons 
why they do so, and these must be intelligible, albeit not 
yet all fully discovered. The story goes that it became a 
question with Newton why an apple should fall from the 
tree where there was nothing to prevent it. And his dis- 
cerning intellect after a while saw that the answer to this 
question involved reasons why a ball rolls down an in- 
cline, a stream of water runs down hill or revolves a 
wheel; why tides occur, bodies are heavy, a pendulum 
vibrates; why the earth follows an orbit around the sun, 
the moon around the earth. The solution of the problem 
resulted in the discovery of a fact universal to the solar 
system, and by strong legitimate inference also applica- 
ble to the material universe ; viz : a tendency to self-ag- 
gregation of all matter, expressing itself quantitively as 
a force, directJy as to masses, and inversely as the square 
of the distance separating the masses whether atomic or 
molar. This is called universal gravitation, and its truth 



136 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

is demonstrated by mathematical proof. "It can be 
neither produced nor destroyed, it is neither hindered 
nor strengthened by any intervening medium. Gravi- 
tation is the force which keeps the world going." The 
universal tendency of matter to seek centers is proof that 
motion is the universal mode of existing of matter. The 
Newtonian third law of motion is that action and reac- 
tion are equal and opposite. Therefore universal gravi- 
tation can never eventuate in all matter finding one com- 
mon center, and the inertia of absolute rest become rea- 
lized. There is then the universal tendency of matter to 
disperse or diffuse itself from centers. It is held that 
atoms of matter do not touch each other; that there is 
room for the ether of space and for motion among atoms 
themselves. One of the motions that separates matter 
from its aggregations is heat. Gravitative motion draws 
matter together, — concentrates it. And by this very pro- 
cess generates heat which antagonizes the results of 
gravitative force without in any degree cancelling its 
tendency to come together, according to the present 
teaching of physics. The arrest of molar motion becomes 
molecular motion which is heat, and tends to the repul- 
sion of matter concentrated. The universal, and if uni- 
versal, then we may say the necessary, property, affec- 
tion of nature of matter is to be in motion. "Of abso- 
lute rest Nature gives us no evidence ; all matter, as far 
as we can ascertain, is ever in movement, not merely in 
masses as with the planetary spheres, but also molecular- 
ly, or throughout its most intimate structure; that the 
force cannot be annihilated, but is merely altered in di- 
rection or character." Prof. W. B. Grove, in The Cor- 
relation and Conservation of Forces. 

It may be said comprehensively, that all knowledge 
or science ultimately concerns matter, energy or force, 
their products and conditions. Energy or force, is action, 
operation, exercise, work; in a one word, motion, every- 
where and always either active or potential. The world,. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 137 

the universe, is a material system. ' ' The total energy of 
any material system is a quantity which can neither be 
increased nor diminished by any action between the 
parts of the system, though it may be transformed into 
any of the forms of which the energy is susceptible." 
Clerk Maxwell in Matter and Motion. ' ' Conservation of 
Energy or Force, means that the energy of the universe 
is constant, no energy being created or destroyed in any 
processes of nature ; every gain or loss in one form of en- 
ergy is a loss or gain in some other form or forms. Cor- 
relation of energies or forces is the transformability of 
one form of energy into another." Century Dictionary. 
"The Conservation of Force is the highest law in physi- 
cal science which our faculties permit us to perceive." 
Farady in Correlation and Conservation of Forces. 

Energy or force, in the last analysis and the most 
discerning and discriminating view is motion, — matter 
in motion. The mathematical definition of energy is: 
"half the mass into the square of its velocity is termed 
its actual energy or energy of motion, that is, its Kinetic 
activity; while the quantity to be added to the sum of 
the actual energy in order to obtain a constant sum is 
termed the potential energy, — that is, the latent or slum- 
bering activity, or energy of position ; the constant being 
termed the total energy. The corresponding general prin- 
ciple of physics is that the total energy of the physical 
universe is a constant : this is the principle of the persist- 
ence or conservation of energy." Cen. Die. I think suf- 
ficient evidence has been adduced to show that the scien- 
tific conception of energy or force is motion, is matter in 
motion and nothing else, and its quantity in the universe 
is a constant sum; as by implication from this showing 
the sum of matter must be also constant. "Just as mat- 
ter may eixst in so many different forms, so may energy : 
Kinetic Energy. Gravitation Energy, Heat Energy, 
Energy of Elasticity, Cohesive Energy, Chemical Ener- 
gy, Electrical Energy, Magnetic Energy, Radient Ener- 



138 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

gy." This list comprises 'forms' of energy, not different 
energies, for the reason that they are one and all inter- 
eonvertable. They are different phases of one thing, not 
different things." Prof. Robert Kennedy Duncan in The 
New Knowledge. These different energies are species of 
one genetic energy, — motion, and are names of different 
aspects of nature, and all express the mechanics of mat- 
ter in definite positions and motions, or laws of opera- 
tions and consequent results. Law, all laws of nature, are 
nothing but expressions of interrelations of differences. 
Does law involve the necessary implication of an ante- 
cedent law-mark as other than, and independent of, the 
interrelations expressing the law? By no means, except 
on the gratuitous and therefore foolish assumption of the 
creation of the material universe. In that case there 
must arise the supposition of an antecedent creation of 
the necessary conditions, the abstracts of matter, its mo- 
tions, and its interrelations, — space and time, which are 
the underlying and necessary presuppositions of the 
mathematics. But as no sane person, intelligent along 
these lines of reasoning can admit that these validities 
which condition the material and operating universe, can 
by any possibility have come into being, do not exist as 
does the matter of the universe, but condition, and are 
presupposed in all possible existence ; for existence must 
be somewhere and change in some time. And these nec- 
essary truths have all the certitude for external author- 
ity that they have for internal, and internal because they 
have for external. For the internal has been and comes 
from the external. If these abstract truths must always 
have been, why not matter have always existed? They 
seem parts of one unoriginated and undissolvable whole. 
Or if matter was created and set in perpetual motions, 
without renewing cause or diminishing action, the crea- 
tive acts must have conformed to these necessary condi- 
tions as ours do. Therefore the creator is not supreme, 
but was obliged by a necessity above and beyond his 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 139 

power. And if he is, and is eternal and not himself cre- 
ated, what he is and has power and will to do, he is so in- 
evitably and by the eternal fate of his existence and na- 
ture. And the creator of the universe no less than the 
uncreated universe, must be held to contain within him- 
self by virtue of his eternal existence, all the possibili- 
ties, actualities and certainties that ever have occurred 
or ever can transpire. It seems to me that this is the ver- 
dict of reason upon the subject of eternal and uncreated 
existence, whether it be the universe or the creator of it, 
as the first and necessary postulate. So there is no ad- 
vantage in the attempt to set the primal postulate in a 
transcendental, but an immense disadvantage. Since a 
transcendent of the universe is not an axiomatic, not a 
possible conception, not a needed averment, or a provable 
proposition, but an impossibility in thought and an ab- 
surdity to intelligence and reason. 

Discussion 3J f . It is reported that Lord Kelvin has 
said that no explanation of the origin of life is conveiva ■ 
ble, save that which refers it to the special act of a per- 
sonal God, and that science absolutely demands creative 
power. Not a biologist came forward to support these 
propositions, says Saleeby in Evolution The Master-Key. 
Both these statements are assertable, but I submit 
neither of them are conceivable, — capable of becoming 
truthful mental images of what they are intended to con- 
vey as historical events and causes of them. Probably on 
some fit religious occasion the words came welling up 
from his religious consciousness, the product of his nur- 
sery teaching, and not the conclusions of his mathematics 
or his scientific discoveries. He cannot have discovered 
the creation of matter or the divine origin of life, or the 
need to avow such propositions except in the religious 
mood. Here they belong and not to verifiable or infer- 
ential science. The noble Lord must be religious. The 
sovereigns of England whose government propagates 
Christianity, creates no religious sceptic Barons, how- 



140 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ever much scientific or practical benefit they may have 
conferred upon the world. Science knows nothing of the 
creation of matter. It is not a problem that comes with- 
in the domain of any science. And the favorable theo- 
logical opinions of great scientists have no special pro- 
bative value for theology. Sir Isaac Newton was not a 
success as a theologian, though he wrote "Observations 
on the Prophecies of Daniel" and the "Apocalypse of 
St. John," "Lexicon Propheticum f a History of Crea- 
tion," and other books. If he had proven creation as he 
did universal gravitation, the sharpest and most per- 
sistent contention would be set at rest. There is resting 
upon the alleged creator the impossible task of bringing 
into evistence from non-existence the material universe, 
distributing matter throughout space, bestowing upon it 
motions, and ordaining the aptitude to all its combina- 
tions, and the emergence of all properties. All these de- 
tails and infinitely more, must the supposititious per- 
sonal creator be charged with. If a greater absurdity can 
be conceived or expressed in language than the creation 
of the universe, I. know not what it can be. Its history 
shows childish simplicity in its allegation and the 
strength of manhood in its support. 

It is not surprising that creation and the God-pro- 
ducing idea of all phenomena should be the first and easy 
persuasion of dawning intelligence. To the childhood of 
the race as to the individual child of to-day, all state- 
ments are equally true. Creation presents no difficulty to 
thought or execution of the child, and can be as easily 
done as Uncle John can make a sled for the boy for 
ought childhood knows. The race had become wide- 
spread and had acquired some intelligence by observa- 
tion and in doing of first things, especially in architect- 
ure, before any radical distinction had been discerned in 
conception and act, between creating and making or 
forming. Indeed, the distinction is not foremost in the 
minds of uncultured today, as is evident from the fact 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 141 

that the latest and most pretentious dictionaries retain 
and do not brand as obsolete, "to make or form*' as one 
definition of "create." And it seems credible enough to 
the child, and to the man without, but the child within, 
that intelligence and power like his own but greater, 
could and did, create or make, the world and all things. 
For God is man-like, or man is God-like, since man is 
made in God's image or likeness. And such is now 
taught the child and the adult everywhere in Christen- 
dom. When a man begins to realize how curious, orderly 
and beautiful all thing's are, especially the flowers and 
vegetation, and how the corresponding parts of the same 
kind of flowers and vegetation are alike in form, number 
and coloring: and how differing things, wide apart per- 
haps in space, are mutually adapted to each other for 
some ulterior end, and will reach each other, which may 
be now remote in time, days, months or years, there arises 
the persuasion of design and purpose with power to exe- 
cute on the part of the alleged being whom he has been 
taught had done and is doing all things, either directly 
and miraculously, or indirectly through the laws and na- 
ture with which he had endowed all things. And there is 
begotten the emotion of wonder and worship. For where 
there is no wonder there is no true worship. This is a 
fascinating enjoyment when well pronounced, and is 
painfully shocked when it encounters scepticism or de- 
nial of the objective reality of the premises on which the 
subjective conviction and emotion rest. Presumably it 
was the same kind of evidence and emotion that called 
forth from one of the Herschels, on contemplating the 
relative positions and orderly ongoing of the heavenly 
spheres, the expression, "The undevout astronomer is 
mad." 

But since the creation of the universe in scientific 
expression has become obsolete and ever was impossible 
as a true conception or mental image, and has given 
place to the conviction of its eternal existence, and all 



142 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

changes and events which ever have occurred or ever can 
take place were from eternity and of necessity implicit 
in the eternal substance, its motions and interrelations; 
as in consistency of reason the creation of the universe 
and all it unfolds must be held as implicit in the sup- 
posed creator in virtue of his eternal existence and na- 
ture ; and the implicitness includes volition and will. But 
we do not find ground in our experience, nor are com- 
pelled by the necessity of reason to postulate that voli- 
tion and will have power absolutely to create objective, 
concrete, perdurable substance. And no ascriptions of 
praise or emotions of worship arise on beholding the 
beauties and order of nature and invest themselves in a 
clear and distinct and adequate personal being as cause 
thereof, because we have no scientific insight that such is 
an historical fact. These assumptions are not necessi- 
tated, but are arbitrary. And in our emotions we drop 
down to the childish standard of wonder to what we do 
not understand, and we become worshipers of our own 
ideals. This and nothing more. Nor is the old saw longer 
available, "All thing's had a beginning, therefore they 
had a Creator." Then creator had a beginning and a 
creator. If the creator of the universe is without begin- 
ning and involves all the universe means and its creation 
besides, why may not the universe be without beginning 
and so without a creator? The feeling of wonder is 
marked in persons susceptible to this emotion, on con- 
templating the harmonious adjustment of differences to 
some near or remote end, and this as means to other end, 
and among the intermediary ends, the being and welfare 
of the contemplator himself, and the adjustment stretch- 
ing on and including the universe of infinite differences 
in one system of being and activity. The emotion of won- 
der and admiration at all one cognizes, with the feeling 
of gladness that he is, that sentient and intellectual ap- 
prehension, reason and personality have become objective 
and subjective and centralized in and constitute his in- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 143 

dividuality and consciousness separate and apart from 
any other. And the interchange of thought, sentient 
conviction and friendly act, with another, like himself, 
may yield most exquisite satisfaction and enjoyment, 
with an environment adapted to minister continually to 
his wants and well-being. Glad of parentage that has 
bequeathed to him a vigorous, symmetrical and healthy 
body and a normal and active mind. And this emotion 
of wonder and gladness and the dwelling in harmony 
with nature of which he feels himself to be the product 
in every sense of the word — is religion, natural religion. 
It binds to, receives from and identifies the self as part 
of nature. And the worship is of, and returns to, the 
universal and eternal source of all that becomes. All 
of our knowledge is of the universe or nature. We 
have none whatever of an impossible supernatural, a 
word which has no realizable meaning. For we cannot 
transcend in thought the universe. This feeling of wor- 
ship of nature, was pronounced in Spinoza, if his life 
and bearing were such as justified Novalis in declaring 
that "Spinoza Avas a God-intoxicated man." But his 
commentators say that "Spinoza's philosophy was a 
thoroughgoing pantheism. ' ' And a pantheist is one who 
believes that God and the universe are identical. 

Discussion 35. There is a legitimate natural reli- 
gion. But every theology is fictitious. To love, harmon- 
ize with and feel one 's entire dependence upon nature — 
nature from which the God-idea has been eliminated, is 
to worship nature. And this objective of worship is not 
lost in a vague subjective state or ideal being, which, 
indeed is no true ideal,for confessedly a being trans- 
cending the universe in space and time, substance, ac- 
tion, property, power, phenomena, comprehensiveness 
and any other namable and provable quality, is incon- 
ceivable, and hence impossible of presentative idea; but 
nature has an obvious, rational, experiential and neces- 
sary objectivity, for all thinking and feeling comes 



144 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

within the domain of nature of the universe, in which 
to realize and centralize worship. 

Andrew Seth, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
says: "Spinoza's philosophy is a thoroughgoing panthe- 
ism. The foundation of the system is one infinite 
substance. God is the imminent cause of the universe; 
but of creation and will there can be no question in 
Spinoza's system. God is used throughout as equivalent 
to nature. The philosophic standpoint comprehends the 
necessity of all that is — a necessity that is none other 
than the necessity of the divine nature itself." It is 
recorded that "After the death of his parents Spinoza 
transferred his share of the estate to his sisters." His 
friend Simon de Vries wished to make him heir to a large 
estate. But he persuaded him to leave it to the donor's 
brother, to whom it more reasonably belonged." Spi- 
noza lived and died in poverty, ostracised by relatives, 
and by Judaistic and Christian religionists. Atheism in 
his day was held as a monstrous criminality, by self- 
appreciating virtue. J believe there is here, in the affir- 
mation of God and the universe a duality of conceptions 
that cannot be merged in identity of conception. And 
pantheism is neither an objective nor subjective truth. 
We can affirm no real, objective, necessary, conceivable 
or provable existence, transcending the universe, or im- 
minent therein, but not of the universe but its creator. 
There cannot be one identity so utterly disparate as 
creator and created. Identity is defined: The state of 
being the same; absolute sameness; the relation which 
any thing bears to itself: identity belongs only to the 
individual, thing, being, etc." An author defining pan- 
theism, identifies the universe with God and calls it 
akosmism. But "akosmism is the denial of the external 
world, according to Dan Mansel. " And identifying God 
with the universe is atheism, that is, the denial of God. 
It is impossible to identify the two conceptions. And to 
deny the objective existence of the material universe; 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 145 

that of which we have the evidence of our senses and 
reason; that which our constant experience deals with, 
and is the subject-matter of all the exact science's; that 
which we practically live in and by, and cannot sanely 
deny ; that we cannot live out of, think out of, get out 
of, or beyond, seems madness. And affirm as an object- 
ive absolute, and most real existence, that of which or of 
w^hom, by confession of those who make the affirmation, 
we can have no true conception, no evidence of sense, 
thought, or experience that can be verified and so proven 
to be an objective existence, is of all absurdities the most- 
absurd. If matter is as experience and our science de- 
clare, and is eternal, self-existing, and self-moving as 
the primal postulate and sound philisophy declare, and 
w T hy should it not be; something must be and exist and 
is everywhere moving. And nothing is known or con- 
ceivable or of necessary affirmation, that did or could 
have put matter into universal motion and maintains it 
in the exact order of positions and motions, without loss 
as a whole. That the world exists and is different from 
myself that makes the allegation has the full measure 
of certainty to me, notwithstanding its denial by the 
idealist, that I exist, for I have the consciousness of the 
other and myself in one indivisable act of consciousness. 
The conscious self has all the conviction of certainty of 
the not-self as of the self. I have no evidence, not the 
least, that matter began to exist, that it was, or could be, 
caused to be from non-being. 

The critical scientist sees nothing in matter or his 
experience with it, not even its disappearance beyond 
his detection, or its appearance where he cannot clearly 
and distinctly see how, as water from two invisible and 
intangible gases, with properties so unlike the gases, 
that legitimates to him the inference that any matter 
has come into or gone out of existence, or that it ever 
was created. In what sense is there, or is there need, 
to affirm a creator? 



146 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

The necessity of eternal uncreated existence as the 
primal postulate, denies by implication the necessity 
and even the possibility of creation, and hence a creator. 
Creation violates the logical principle of the law of 
parcimony — that we are not to suppose the existence and 
causal operation of anything not necessary to account 
for admitted facts. The existence of the material uni- 
verse as distinct and other than our thought of it, can 
only be denied verbally and never consciously. And the 
creation of the universe from non-existence and there- 
fore a creator of it, can only be affirmed verbally, and 
never consciously, or of necessity, or from adequate 
proof. And here the materialist and non-creationist, 
the advocate of the eternal uncreated self-existing, self- 
moving instead of self -quiescent, and the evolution of all 
actual and possible properties, life and mentality, from 
matter and by matter and its necessary conditions of 
existing phenomenating space and time, might rest his 
case, as against the creationist, the creation and hence 
the creator of matter and the endowment of its energy 
of motion, of properties, of life and mentality. An au- 
thor says: "A favorite piece of apologetic juggling is 
that of first demolishing Atheism, Pantheism, Material- 
ism, etc., by calling upon their advocates to explain the 
mystery of self -existence, and then tacitly assuming that 
the need of such an explanation does not appertain in 
the case of Theism, as though the attribute of self -exist- 
ence were more conceivable when posited in a Deity, 
than elsewhere." That is, as though the creation of 
matter from non-existence, and therefore its Creator, 
were a self-evident proposition, and its expression in- 
volves its truth; or its truth were so manifest that to 
call it in question is fully explained when reference is 
made to ignorance of what is so palpably and gener- 
ally known. And the eternal uncreated existence of 
matter were a contingent proposition and must be ex- 
trinsically proven. While matter is the only existence 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 147 

known to persist in unchanging quantity. It is said that 
"In the whole Sanscrit language, the classical primitive 
language of the Aryan race of men, there is not a single 
word which signifies Ho create' in the sense of the 
Semitic or Christian dogma. ' ' Creation of matter is so 
utterly inconceivable by cultured intelligence as to ren- 
der its first suggestion by such intelligence improbable. 
The dogma of a revelation by ignorance is its source. 

Discussion 36. It is plain that the Creator cannot 
be identified as one with his creation, declared to be the 
universe. This would be either self -creation, which is 
self-contradiction, and the implication that the creator 
was created, which denies his eternity; or denies any 
creation at all. And in either case denies a transcend- 
ental of the universe as an existing difference. 

To say that God is one and indivisable, not part in 
one place and part in another, but whole and entire in 
every place, or whole and entire only in the infinitude 
of places; that his omnipresence, omniscience and per- 
sonality, are infinitely co-extensive, and co-intensive; 
that he is independent of space and time, or dependent 
on these validities; is independent of, and other than, 
the material universe, or identified with it, is creator of 
all things, is imminent in all things and other than all 
things, is to utter verbalities as monstrous in their self- 
contradictions as they are impossible of mental picturing 
or intelligible affirmation. Evidently scientific intelli- 
gence cannot aver creation or creator. As already point- 
ed out, the primal necessary affirmation is eternal un- 
created existence. And having existence of inevitable 
necessity given in unavoidable presupposition, creation 
and creator are illegitimate, superfious and absurd. 
Given: space, time, matter and its motions, and all else 
is implicit therein — mechanics, mathematics, suns and 
their planets, physics, chemistry, life, plants, animals, 
men, myself and what I am now writing, and whatever 
else there is or can be. An author says : ' ' There are only 



148 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

three 'verbally intelligible' theories of the universe, viz: 
that it is self -existent or self-created, or created by some 
other and external being; that the first of these theories 
is Atheism, the second Pantheism and the third Theism. ' ' 
Now I submit that self -creation is not 'verbally intelligi- 
ble. ' For what is verbally self-contradictory and there- 
fore absurd, is not intelligible. Since self must be 
presupposed already in order that self can be alleged to 
have a creator, and therefor to be created. Pantheism, 
the word, literally means all God, and may well enough 
stand for worship of all the Gods, as the supposed ser- 
vice at the Pantheon in Rome, before Christianity had 
introduced a service not contemplated by its builders, 
and has no reference to self-creation or creation at all. 
And as the dictionary defines Atheism, the word implies 
rather the disapprobation of the speaker than any very 
definite opinions. 

The primal postulate of eternal self -existing and 
self -ongoing existence, is assumed by theism as by athe- 
ism. Atheism consistently and of necessity is seen to 
be involved in this postulate. All that becomes must be 
from what has eternally been, and must be evolved 
therefrom. And it identifies as its postulate, space and 
time, matter and its motions, and all natural implica- 
tions, giving the indestructibility of matter and the per- 
sistence of force; as that which always has been, and 
therefore must forever continue to be, from which all 
that becomes proceeds. Theism has no standing even in 
its own judgment, unless it opposes to what it must 
assert the contradictory and needless affirmation, crea- 
tion, and by implication, creator. 

It is now incumbent upon it to point out and dis- 
tinguish what is eternal existence and what created 
existence. And it has elected to say, that all the existence 
of which we know anything from any power of cognition 
which we possess through sense, truth that is involved in 
its verbal expression, necessary inference or reasoned 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 149 

conclusion, viz: the material universe, is created exist- 
ence. And the creator is he (for theism insists that its 
creator is manlike and of the male sex) of whom we 
can have no natural knowledge whatever, not even a 
mental image that shall satisfy the human demand of 
what the creator of the universe must be to be its ade- 
quate creator. And it rests its case for proof on h ear- 
say, without proving the competency or integrity of 
its witnesses. This is its evident and everlasting de- 
feat. For nothing is more preposterous than the claim 
that the material universe is a created thing and its 
creator distinguished by the evidence of verbal or writ- 
ten testimony concerning some spectacular or spectral 
appearance. Nothing could be evidence of the creation 
of matter but its absolute creation. And no hideous or 
lovely aparition even should declare itself to be the 
creator of the universe, could be adequate evidence of it. 
And no deed done however marvelous, but the creation 
of matter itself, could warrant the inference that the 
doer did or could create the worlds of matter, or a single 
atom. Theism, in its two claims of the creator of the 
universe, and the specific creator of it, is absolutely 
without the power to adduce any evidence of either. But 
theism holds the contrary very tenaciously. A well 
known argument, perhaps first constructed by Prof. 
Clerk Maxwell, is his presidental address before the 
British Association, 1870, and runs as follows: (I do not 
quote directly from the first report of it, but from a 
citation of the report) "None of the processes of na- 
ture, since the time when nature began, have produced 
the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. 
We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence 
of molecules or the identity of their properties to the 
operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On 
the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all 
others of the same kind, gives it as Sir John Herschel 
has well said, the essential character of a manufactured 



150 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and 
self -existent. Thus we have been led along a strictly 
scientific path, very near to the point at which science 
must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying 
the external mechanism of a molecule which she cannot 
take to pieces, any more than from investigating an or- 
ganism, which she cannot put together. But in tracing 
back the history of matter, science is arrested when she 
assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has 
been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made 
by any of the processes we call natural." 

The assumption of creationism is that the universe 
of matter and energy, and change, and the necessary pre- 
suppositions, — space and time, are created products from 
non-existence and non-being. I am not aware, however, 
that it has directly and in form assumed the creation or 
determination from non-being of the universal and nec- 
essary validities of space and time, or that opposers o f 
creation have demanded the accounting for these validi- 
ties as involved in the problem of creation of the uni- 
verse. They certainly cannot be declared as no part of 
the universe, and as certainly must be declared as enter- 
ing into the problem of its creation. If it has not oc- 
curred to creationists, nor been suggested by deniers of 
creation, that these antecedent conditions to the possible 
creation or existence of matter and change, are essential 
points in the problem, it is time that it should be. For 
if there has been creation of positive concrete matter, and 
this coerced into related motions and positions, and or- 
derly sensible changes are occurring, there must be the 
abstract, pre-supposed where and when, i. e., space and 
time, that underlie as antecedent conditions of creation 
of matter, as well as the how of creation and by whom, 
the impossible feat of the creation of all things has been 
effected. The presuppositions are as exterior to, inde- 
pendent of, and cognized by, our sensibilities, as is mat- 
ter and change and intellectuality cognized as the uni- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 151 

versal and necessary determinants of the order of all that 
exists or becomes. To say that time and space have no 
external objective validity, is virtually to deny the ob- 
jectivity of the external world, and consequently its cre- 
ation. The order of matter in its related positions and 
motions, and consequent products and events are taken 
from the domain of the contingent by the necessary or- 
ders involved in space and time, and placed in the do- 
main of the inevitable, as appertains to what becomes as 
to what is eternal. And the universal order of posited 
and moving things and occurring events in nature, so 
much relied upon by creationists in their contention that 
order needs a separate orderer, that is, that wherever 
there is the law of regularity or order, there is implied 
the intelligent law-maker. This can only be sustained by 
proof that the validities involved in space and time, have 
been created or brought into being from non-being. For 
instance, that two parallel lines never meet or further 
diverge; that the three angles of a triangle are equal to 
two right angles, no more nor less ; and the straight line 
is the shortest distance between two points, and all 
axiomatic relations were made to be so by an intelligent 
and sufficient law-making personality; and are not un- 
ordained truths involved in what creationists and non- 
creationists alike agree is eternal, uncreated and unor- 
dained. 

Discussion 37. It is doubtful if any rational scien- 
tific intelligence can be brought to the candid consider- 
ate conviction that the validities which constitute space 
and time as place and duration of all that is or can be, 
and measures of the same were ever caused to be or can 
deny that they are independent of whether there is any- 
thing to occupy space or event to occur in time; or 
thought to cognize their universal and inevitable truths, 
or that there is or can be anything or being, thought or 
acts, out of their domain and beyond their interrelating 
and order-obliging power. No matter can be posited and 



152 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

thought detect it as beyond the range or too intricate to 
be measured by space-interrelations, or events occur how- 
ever prolonged or instantaneous their duration, that 
were before, or are not exactly measured by time-interre- 
lations. All things and events are intelligible, because the 
universe is in ordered self -interrelations, and this be- 
cause it cannot be otherwise and not because it was made 
so by a fore-ordainer. 

This might well be allowed by the pantheist whose 
God is one and the same as, and not different from the 
universe. In his persuasion there is and can be no bona- 
fide creation. Self-creation is self-contradiction in terms, 
impossible of thought and of realization. For the self 
which is the creator of the same self is presupposed in 
existence already, in order that there can be the creator. 
And how can a creator which already is, create himself 
which already is? Christian theism (there is no natural 
theism, unless pantheism might be so called) affirms a 
universe of real concrete existence occupying space, and 
of events filling time, and of force or movements of mat- 
ter, and the creation of matter ex nihilo, by a creator as 
actual and real as matter though denied to be material 
or of the stuff of matter. It is the creation of the real ma- 
terial forceful phenomenal, Space and Time universe,, 
that Christian theism affirms and atheism denies to be 
created. The complete and satisfactory vindication of 
theism must involve not only that the universe was 
caused to be and to exist when and where it was not and 
never did exist, but how as well as by whom created and 
caused to be. The by whom created cannot be inferred 
even should matter involve the necessary inference of its 
creation. "In tracing back the history of matter," says 
Prof. Maxwell, in his argument cited above, "Science is. 
arrested when she assures herself on the one hand, that 
the molecule has been made, and on the other, that it 
has not been made by any of the processes called natur- 
al. " The language here used has no direct reference ta 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 153 

the creation of the stuff of which the molecule consists, 
but only of its form. He is supposed here to refer to the 
unalterable fixity of form and nature of the chemical 
atoms of the same kinds of matter, of which there are 
some seventy or eighty different kinds, and these kinds 
of matter are never changing into any other kinds by any 
processes of nature. It has been discovered since the 
lamented death of Prof. Maxwell, that the universal 
opinion concerning atoms was erroneous. They are now 
known to be compound bodies made up of bits of matter 
1,000 times less than the least atom, and are changing by 
processes of nature. The minute bits of matter consti- 
tuting the atoms are called corpuscles and electrons. 
' ' The actual unit of matter is not the so-called atom, but 
the electron, which is really a literal atom of negative 
electricity. The atoms of the different elements vary 
only in the number and arrangements of their electrons, 
every electron, wherever observed, being identical with 
every other. The stability of the atom depends on the 
number and arrangement of the electrons it contains. No 
contemporary physicist believes that such a thing as an 
absolutely stable atom exists, though some may undergo 
no apparent change in millions of years. Thompson's 
theory clearly explains how atoms of one element, by los- 
ing their outer ring or ring of electricity, may be trans- 
formed into those of another, and it also demonstrates 
the operation, among atomic species, of the law of 
natural selection. The atoms with which we are now ac- 
quainted, — some eighty or so in number, are those that 
have survived of many more that have not during count- 
less past aeons." There is likely to be error in language 
and of conception in the flush of the new knowledge that 
is revolutionizing the scientific view of the universe. It 
is hardly true that the atoms are composed wholly of 
electrons, since this name is restricted to the corpuscles or 
electrons which Prof. Ramsey calls atoms of electricity 
that appear at the cathode. But the negative corpuscles 



154 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

that appear at the cathode must be balanced by positive 
corpuscles that appear at the anode. And Prof. Ramsey 
calls these matter. They behave themselves very differ- 
ently from the cathode particles. "Prof. J. J. Thomson 
has found a way to measure the speed of these cathode 
particles, their weight or mass as well, in a word, to dem- 
onstrate that they are real. They seem quite wonderful, 
for they are the smallest things known to man, and it 
may be that out of them the universe is made. " ' ' Where 
the chemical atoms offer an engaging variety, with the 
electrons there is none at all. Whatever be the source 
from which they spring, whether they come from air, 
from hydrogen or carbonic acid, or from metals, as from 
lead or gold, they seem one and all the same. Has the 
physicist reached at last the primal matter, the ultimate 
basis of all existing things? This, it would appear, is 
Prof. Thomson's own view, for already he has begun to 
utilize his electrons to explain the composition of matter, 
and even the nature of electricity. The most remarkable 
fact is their sameness. It would seem as if the variety 
and chemical differences of the atoms were due simply to 
the number, the motions, and positions of bits of primal 
matter, identical among themselves. In this way we 
should have an explanation of chemical phenomena. ' ' 

"We believe — we must believe, in this day, that 
everything in the universe, of world and stars is made of 
atoms in quantities, x, y or z, respectively. Men and 
women, mice and elephants, the red belts of Jupiter and 
the rings of Saturn are one and all but ever shifting, 
ever- varying swarms of atoms. Every mechanical work 
of earth, air, fire and water, every criminal act, every 
human deed of love or valor, what is it all, pray, but the 
relation of one swarm of atoms to another. Here, for ex- 
ample, is a swarm of atoms, vibrating, scintillant, mar- 
tial — they call it a soldier, — and, anon, some thousands 
of miles away upon the South African veldt, that swarm 
dissolves, — dissolves, forsooth, because of another little 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 155 

swarm, — they call it lead. What a phantasmagoric dance 
it is, this dance of atoms ! And what a task for the Mas- 
ter of the Ceremonies. For mark you the mutabilities of 
things. These same atoms, or others like them, come to- 
gether again, vibrating, clustering, interlocking, combin- 
ing, and there results a woman, a flower, a blackbird or 
locust, as the case may be. But tomorrow again the dance 
is ended and the atoms are far away; some of them are 
in the fever germs that broke up the dance, others are 
the 'green hair of the grave,' and others are blown about 
the antipodes on the winds of the ocean. The mutabili- 
ties of things, and likewise the tears of things, for one 
thing alters another, 

Like snow upon the Desert's dusty Face 
Lighting a little hour or two — is gone/ 
and the eternal, ever-changing dance goes on." So it 
cannot now be said: "None of the processes of nature 
since the time when nature began, have produced the 
slightest difference in the properties of any molecules. 
We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence 
of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the 
operation of any of the causes which we call natural.'' 
These statements are definitely negatived by advance in 
physical and chemical science since the time Prof. Max- 
well uttered them. 

Discussion 38. "The exact quality of each molecule 
to all others of the same kind," is tautology. One could 
not be different from another and be strictly of the same 
kind. But is it essential to manufactured articles that 
they be all of the same quality, or all of the same kind? 
And is it the essential character of "eternal self-exist- 
ence," that it should be everywhere differing in itself, 
and sameness precludes the idea of eternal self-existence? 
Such seems to be the force of Prof. Maxwell's reasoning. 
We rather feel that sameness in form and quality of all 
primal stuff; or in other words, if science has reached a 
material entity in which all difference in heaven and 



156 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

earth, is absent except numerical, this indicates not man- 
ufactured or created, but the eternal self -existing exist- 
ence that the primal assumption necessitates. 

There can be no antecedent or final cause, purpose, 
or design, involved in eternal uncaused existence. For 
there is no antecedence possible. But it must involve of 
necessity all existential, ontological, potential, logical and 
active, cause of all that becomes in infinite space and 
time, the all comprehensive whole of unchanging quan- 
tity, whose ever varying changes of interrelated positions 
through affinitive and repulsive motions, matter's uni- 
versal mode of existing, and account for all phenomena, 
including living and intelligent beings. While these vary 
in number and in quantity of intelligence, and they be- 
come and cease to be, now are, and anon are not, neither 
they nor intelligence nor its like can be the unchanging 
quantity that is, ever has been, and consequently ever 
must be. 

No words are so destitute of meaning, so impossible 
to what they allege, so preposterous, as the absolute cre- 
ation of the material, space and time universe. But with 
many this impossibility is turned to easy and accepted 
faith by the simple expression, — "God created the 
heavens and the earth." And so general is this faith 
among Semitic peoples and their Aryan converts 
through near 2,000 years of persistent teaching, involv- 
ing as it has come to involve all over Europe and the 
Western Continent and parts of Asia, the interests of 
national governments, educational institutions, profes- 
sions and social dignities and common workers for daily 
bread, to support and propagate the absurdity of crea- 
tion by a personality as extended as space and co-eval 
with time, while there is no knowledge of the creation 
of matter nor any that of necessity inferentially sup- 
ports the allegation. So universally is creation impressed 
upon our childhood, that when in after years by scientific 
enlightenment and reflection we come to realize that 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 157 

there must be eternal and uncaused existence, and be- 
come familiar with scientific expressions, — ''The inde- 
structibility of matter and force," or in the words of 
Prof. Helmholtz : ' ' Nature as a whole possesses a store 
of force which cannot in any way be either increased or 
diminished. And therefore the quantity of force in na- 
ture is just as eternal and unalterable as the quantity of 
matter. Expressed in this form, I have named the gen- 
eral law, "The Principle of the Conservation of Force." 
And when we have identified the necessity of the mind 
Avithin us and the whole of things without us, — the mat- 
ter of the universe and its necessary mode of existing in 
motion as indestructible force, and because there is noth- 
ing else with which to identify it, the early impression of 
the creation of the world asserts its denial. And as cre- 
ation is an act and had a beginning, there must be the 
actor or creator. And the necessary eternal uncaused 
existence becomes the supposititious creator; not of the 
proven or necessary premis of creation, but of our easy 
childish persuasion. And this persuasion has determined 
and still dominates our forms of government, institu- 
tions of learning and social life. Probably no one is 
more strongly convinced of the fixedness of the quantity 
of matter and force in the universe than was Prof. Max- 
well. But his early training and religious feeling's gave 
character to many of his scientific expressions. The same 
may be said of Faraday, Lord Kelvin and many others. 
Creation is a religious and not a scientific notion, and 
carries us back to fetichism and idolatry; that is, to our 
childhood, and childhood lingers in us tenaciously. Hence 
the religious prejudice of Prof. Maxwell lead him to use 
language favorable to his religious faith, but supports it 
by no scientific reasons, because there are none. In his 
article "Atom," in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Prof. 
Maxwell says: "Science is incompetent to reason upon 
the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have 
reached the utmost limit of our thinking 1 faculties when 



158 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

we have admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal 
and self -existent, it must have been created. It is only 
when we contemplate not matter in itself, but the form 
in which it actually exists, that our mind finds some- 
thing on which it can hold. That matter, as such, should 
have certain fundamental properties, that it should have 
a continuous existence in space and time, that all action 
should be between two portions of matter, and so on, are 
truths which may, for aught we know, be of a kind which 
metaphysicians call necessary. We may use our knowl- 
edge of such truths for purposes of education, but we 
have no data for speculating on their origin." 

There are statements in this quotation that seem de- 
structive of each other. "As science is incompetent to 
reason upon the creation of matter out of nothing," it 
may be asked, by what process "of our thinking facul- 
ties" have we come "to admit that matter cannot be 
eternal and self -existent ? ' ' The admission is that matter 
itself, neither our scientific experience, furnishes grounds 
of reason for the creation of matter. By what means then 
have we come to say that "because matter cannot be eter- 
nal and self-existent, it must have been created?" There 
must have been some decisive reason for the positiveness 
of this expression. It is denied to be found in the com- 
petency of our faculties to reason upon the creation of 
matter out of nothing, and "we have no data for specu- 
lating on its origin. ' ' Then it must be found outside of 
our faculties of reasoning and beyond all "data for 
speculating on its origin." That is, its creation is not a 
reasonable ground to take. Then from whence comes the 
"because it cannot be eternal and self-existent?" I see 
no ground for it except his strong religious faith rest- 
ing on biblical authority. And I think it is true that in 
any argument sustaining the creation of matter, the evi- 
dence relied upon and most tenaciously held to, is the 
Bible statement: "God created the heavens and the 
earth." And further, I see no reason for, and doubt if 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 159 

there are persons of a scientific training, before coming 
within the fetichistic entanglements of theology and the 
religious consciousness, who allege the creation of matter 
for any scientific reasons. And certainly it cannot be 
maintained on any scientific or psychical grounds. For 
as Maxwell says, we have no faculties competent to rea- 
son upon the creation of matter out of nothing, and we 
have no experience that favors the allegation. It is mere- 
ly a religious notion, resting on some ipse dixit, of no 
more authority as a matter of fact, than would be John 
Alexander Dowie's, if it took its origin from him. 

1 ' The Gods formed the starting-point, beyond which 
no man thought of looking. It was the glory of bards 
and story-tellers to be able to satisfy those religious and 
patriotic pre-dispositions of the public which caused the 
primary demand for their tales, and which were of a 
nature eminently inviting and expansive. We shall here- 
after reach a time when philosophers protested against 
such identification of the Gods with the more vulgar ap- 
petites and enjoyments. To understand properly the 
Grecian myths, we must try to identify ourselves with 
the state of mind of the original mythopeic age ; a pro- 
cess not very easy, since it requires us to adopt a string 
of poetical fancies not simply as realities, but as the gov- 
erning realities of the mental system ; yet a process which 
would only reproduce something analogous to our own 
childhood. The age was one destitute of recorded his- 
tory and of positive science, but full of imagination and 
sentiment and religious impressibility. From these 
sources sprang that multitude of supposed persons 
around whom all combinations of sensible phenomena 
were grouped and toward whom curiosity, sympathies 
and reverence were earnestly directed. Nor need we 
wonder that the same plausibility which captivated his 
imagination and his feelings, was sufficient to engender 
spontaneous belief; or rather that no question, as to 
truth or falsehood of the narrative suggested itself to his 



160 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

mind. His faith is ready, literal and uninquiring, apart 
from all thought of discriminating fact from fiction. It 
is enough that what he hears is intrinsically plausible 
and seductive, and there be no special cause to provoke 
doubt. And if there were, the poet overrules such doubts 
by the holy and all-sufficient authority of the Muse, 
whose omniscience is a warrant for his recital, as her in- 
spiration is the cause of his success. The poet like the 
prophet whom he so much resembles, sings under heaven- 
ly guidance, inspired by the goddess to whom he has 
prayed for her assisting impulse. She puts the word into 
his mouth and the incidents into his mind ; he is a privi- 
leged man, chosen as her organ and speaking from her 
revelations. The myth passed unquestioned from the 
mere fact of its currency. Throughout the whole of 
' ' myth-bearing Hellas ' ' they formed the staple of the un- 
instructed Greek mind, upon which history and philoso- 
phy were by so slow degrees superinduced ; and they con- 
tinued to be the aliment of ordinary thought and con- 
versation, even after history and philosophy had partial- 
ly supplanted the mythical faith among the leading men, 
and disturbed it more or less in the ideas of all. And 
Pausanias, even in his time, heard everyAvhere divine or 
heroic legends yet alive, precisely of the old type ; he 
found the conceptions of religious or mythical faith co- 
extensive with those of positive science, and contending 
against them at more or less of odds. The religious and 
mythical point of view covers, for the most part, all the 
phenomena of nature; while the conception of invariable 
sequence exists only in the background. Voluntary 
agents, visible and invisible, impel and govern every- 
thing. History and philosophy, of which the subsequent 
Greeks were the first creators, never belonged to more 
than a comparatively small number of thinking men. 
But when positive science and criticism, and the idea of 
an invariable sequence of events, came to supplant in the 
more vigorous intellects the old mythical creed of omni- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 161 

present personification, an inevitable scission was pro- 
duced between the instructed few and the remaining com- 
munity. The opposition between the scientific and relig- 
ious point of view was not slow in manifesting itself. In 
general language, both might seem to stand together, but 
in every particular case the admission of the one involv- 
ed the rejection of the other. " " Xenophanes, Thales and 
Pythagoras in the Sixth Century before the Christian 
era, first opened up those veins of speculative philosophy 
which occupied afterward so large a portion of Grecian 
intellectual energy. They were the first who attempted 
to disenthrall the philosophic intellect from all person- 
ifying religious faith, and to constitute a method of in- 
terpreting nature distinct from the spontaneous inspira- 
tions of untaught minds. It is in them that we first find 
the idea of Person tacitly set aside or limited, and an im- 
personal Nature conceived as the object of study. Thales, 
as well as Xenophanes and Pythagoras, started the prob- 
lem of physical philosophy, with its objective character 
and invariable laws, to be discoverable by a proper and 
methodical application of the human intellect. The Greek 
word Physis, denoting nature, and its derivitives physics 
and physiology, as well as the word Kosmos, to denote 
the mundane system, first appears with these philoso- 
phers. The elemental analysis of Thales — the one un- 
changeable cosmic substance, varying only in appear- 
ance, but not in reality, as suggested by Xenophanes — 
and the geometrical combinations of Pythagoras, were 
different ways of approaching the explanation of phys- 
ical phenomena. They all agreed in departing from the 
primitive method, and in recognizing determinate prop- 
erties, a material substratum, and objective truth in 
nature." Grote's Greece, Chap. XVI. 

Discussion 39. I have made this long quotation be- 
cause it sets forth not inaptly and in language more 
perspicuous and elegant than I can command, my con- 
ception of the likeness of the Greek religion to the 



162 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Christian in the centuries past and today. For the 
Christian religion is but the aggravated and schismatic- 
al Hebrew religion, cast off and disowned by its Jewish 
parentage and taken up, adopted, Christianized and 
sustained to its present enormous opulence and preten- 
tions by its Aryan supporters; in their inceptions in the 
childhood of development, their assumptions of inspira- 
tion from divine beings or being, beyond which no one 
thought of looking, and the romance of each religion 
alike satisfying their respective devotees; and all have 
carried forward their pretentions from the easy faith of 
childhood loving marvelous tales, before the discernment 
of either truth or falsehood, into developed manhood, 
all the time the fabulous becoming more and more estab- 
lished as the real and actual; incorporated into natural 
]ife, social life, and individual life. And it is a breach 
of the civil law and a corrupting of the youth and of 
society to disbelieve and avow the disbelief in the popu- 
lar Gods, or in all Gods. And it becomes easier to con- 
done murder and associate with murderers than atheism 
and atheists. But in the lapse of time, and change, the 
many Greek Gods and their theogeny have disappeared, 
and part of Aryan posterity has rejected its racial Gods 
and religion and adopted the Hebrew monotheism, and 
the theogeny of one only begotten "God of God," car- 
ried over as remains from Greek theogeny. And Chris- 
tianity was dependent on the Greek language and Greek 
thought Avhich had been developed and employed to set 
forth the Greek conception of its theology which Chris- 
tianity thought to degrade by calling it mythology, yet 
borrowing its terms and meaning to express its theology. 
Speaking of the Christian Church about the middle of 
the third century, Harnack says: "We now really find 
a new commonwealth, politically formed and equipped 
with fixed forms of all kinds. We recognize in these 
forms few Jewish, but many Graeco-Roman features ; 
and finally, we perceive also in the doctrine of faith on 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 163 

which this commonwealth is based, the philosophic spirit 
of the Greeks. The Christian Church and its doctrine 
were developed within the Roman world and Greek 
Culture. As a consequence of the complete break with 
the Jewish church there followed not only the strict ne- 
cessity of quarrying the stones for the building of the 
Church from the Graeco-Roman world, but also the idea 
that Christianity has a more positive relation to that 
world than to the synagogue." History of Dogma, Vol. 1, 
pages 45. 46. 

As in the Graeco-Roman, so in the Christian and 
every other religion resting on the supernatural, there 
comes, after the juvenility of the individual is passed, 
if natural things and events come into the foreground 
of critical observation and reflection, a time of question 
and denial that all facts and occurrences cluster around 
personalities or a personality as their cause of being. 
Vaticinations and dreams are held in Christian theology 
to be its foundation pillars and now repose in colossal 
strength and grandeur, challenging the world of reason 
and sense to overthrow them, and branding the denier ol 
any trustworthy validity in dreams with inhumanity, 
infidelity and infamy. The history of religions justifies 
the psychogenetic generalization of Auguste Compte, 
whatever error may attach to his system of philosophy. 
"The race like the individual passes through three in- 
tellectual stages — the theological, in which a supernatur- 
al origin is sought for all phenomena. Dens ex machina 
is the only explanation of all events. The Metaphysical 
in which the consciously supernatural is set aside as in- 
credible. The Positive, in which the mind affirms the 
futility both of the theological and the metaphysical." 
The hysterical poet was the hypostasis of the Hebrew- 
Christian religion. They sang and still sing alike under 
heavenly inspiration and guidance, and prayed and still 
pray for assisting impulse, and answers came and still 
come alike to both. And the reason is equal for the 



164 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

acceptance of both or the rejection of both, and there 
is no scientific or philosophic reason to accept either for 
what it claims for itself, and revelation equally for 
both or rejection of both. The dawn of questioning 
thought of the race and of the individual, left to itself 
without instruction is, that matter so far as it is observed 
to move or change, is everywhere animate, or that 
changes are carried on much as the child sees and feels 
them to be effected by others and himself. Not the Hyh> 
zoism that ascribes life to every atom of matter. Not 
Hylogenesis — the genesis, creation or origin of matter. 
Not Anima Mundi, immaterial, but inseparable from 
matter, and giving to matter its form and movements. 
Not the anima of Stahl, conceived as presiding in, but 
independent of, and superior to, which forms the body 
and directs and determines all its functions. For all 
these views are advanced thought. But the animism as 
set forth by E. B. Tyler in his Primitive Culture — the 
general doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings, as 
causes of all phenomena in nature, conceived of as done 
in a human-like way, hence an anthropomorphic God. 

We have already laid great stress upon the universal 
tendency of men to seek a cause for all things and events 
coming within the capacity and opportunity of their 
senses. And as all minds are as essentially one as all 
matter is one, in the pursuit of cause all have passed 
along substantially the same paths of experience and 
reasoning. The savage and barbaric stages of human 
life have their philosophy of the world. And the first 
traceable attempt at philosophizing, or to account for 
phenomena, is the religious or spiritistic or humanistic, 
because man's way of doing things is the highest stand- 
ard presented to early cognition. 

Dreams and shadows and reflexion of his form and 
features in water, and echoes of his voice, find no other 
explanation than they are as real and distinct from him- 
self as they appear to be. The savage also observes that 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 165 

the new-born babe takes in or inhales breath or air, 
which to him is the beginning of life, and the last act of 
life is to exhale breath, or that which was first inhaled 
at birth. Life seems evidently to enter into the body at 
birth and depart as the last expiring breath. "The 
primitive and natural motion of life was that it consisted 
of the breath, and in most languages words signifying 
breath are used to mean the principle of life, and spirit 
is one of these. ' ' 

The mistaken inferences of our early race-experi- 
ence before the development of intelligence still clings 
to us, and is generally entertained in spite of correcting 
intelligence. We thus see our way clearly from barbaric 
experience to the beginnings of superstitious or religious 
notions, and their growth to the myths and dogmas, rev- 
elations and rituals of the most advanced religions of 
the present day, whose staying power is their ethics, 
which their advocates connect with their theism, but 
which belongs not property and of natural growth to the- 
ism, and has been artificially and at a late day engrafted 
thereon, but belongs to, has its source and sanction in, 
and its beneficences are wholly humanistic, although 
people nowadays talk of working for God, and God 
wants you to do so and so. But moralities have sprung 
from human needs and are fostered by human satisfac- 
tion. That animals have spirits surviving their death 
as well as man is believed as evidenced by the usage of 
savage chiefs, whose wives and slaves and domestic ani- 
mals are slaughtered at their death, whose spirits may 
serve them in the after life. His notion of an after life 
is derived, as is seen from his dreams of meeting the 
dead, his previous life-companions. We can trace the 
not long-ago obsolete practice in Europe of the sacrifice 
of the warrior's favorite horse at his grave that he may 
ride into the other world. The last act of this kind in 
Europe, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, occurred at 
Treves in 1781. And its memento is still practiced by 



166 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

leading the dead general's horse saddled and bridled 
and caparisoned in his funeral procession. 

The juvenile thought of large portions of the race 
is that matter, so far as it is observed to move or change, 
is everywhere animate, and changes are carried on much 
as the child sees and feels them to be by others and him- 
self. And this notion survives in some who are not chil- 
dren in intelligence. For there are Hylozoists whose 
philosophy of the ongoings of the universe appeals to 
them as best explained by supposing every particle of 
matter to be endowed with life and divinity. But a 
universe of an infinite number of personalities working 
individual changes without agreement among them- 
selves, and the impossibility of agreement, was seen to 
be inconsistent with observed order, and the persuasion 
arose that there is one universal soul or spirit that 
stands in the same relation to the whole of nature as 
the human spirit stands to the human body. Then this 
notion became modified, and the great spirit is separated 
from matter, time and space, and is said to be both im- 
minent in and transcendent of, nature, but directly or 
indirectly works all changes therein, so that God is all 
and in all. And perhaps this is the latest orthodox re- 
ligious philosophy. But it is not the philosophy that 
rests upon intelligible scientific data. A philosophy that 
grounds on a statement that is not as self -evidently true, 
as the fact of existence, or must of necessity be postulat- 
ed, as the non-beginning and the illimitation of space 
and time, and their universal and inevitable validities, 
cannot prove satisfactory. Hence, theism or religion 
that founds on, and everywhere in its course develops 
into, mysteries that find their exposition only by being 
merged in the one gratuitous and fundamental assump- 
tion of a creator, the abyss and climax of mystery, in 
which all others lose themselves but find no intelligible 
explanation for positive existence, change and stability. 
For neither creator nor creation is a thing of experience, 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 167 

necessary affirmation or provable fact. Therefore the- 
ism can never become the philosophy of thinkers. 

Discussion 40. As between theism and atheism, 
theism assumes the attitude of affirming' and therefore 
of supporting by evidence, what is inconceivable, need- 
less to affirm, is outside the field of experience, and im- 
possible of proof. Atheism on the contrary is in the at- 
titude of affirming what is self-evident. It has no thesis, 
-at the start, to be maintained by positive proof. Or to 
put it differently, they both are at one in the necessity of 
postulating eternal uncreated existence, which in the 
last analysis must be causal of all that begins. And in 
this affirmation which is common to both, there is not 
implied creation nor creator . They each seem irrelevant 
after eternal existence is of necessity granted. (I should 
premise that b} r theism is here meant Judaistic and 
Christian theism.) It is likely that both theism and 
atheism would subscribe this statement as its primal 
postulate. There is and must be eternal, uncaused, self - 
existing and self-ongoing or active existence, with its 
necessary implications, space and time. The question 
may now be put to each of the thus far agreeing parties ; 
What is, and what do you mean, and what do you iden- 
tify as the eternal, uncreated and ongoing existence 
from which must proceed all that becomes? The atheist 
replies: Nature or the material space and time universe, 
and says the universe exists, is ongoing, and it gives no 
evidence that the matter and space and time of it, or 
its ongoing changes, ever began, or will or can cease to 
be. And there is nothing else that can realize the fact 
of the primal postulate which must be of universal cog- 
nition without extrinsic proof, or it could not be the 
primal necessary postulate of eternal existence. And 
nere atheism, which means denial of theism, that is, de- 
nial of the creation of the universe, and therefore of its 
creator; on the affirmation of which atheism reposes as 
foundation. Eternal existence is a necessary affirmation, 



168 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

therefore denies creation. It must of necessity be grant- 
ed from the self-evidencing validity of the proposition. 
But the theist must prove two propositions by extrinsic 
evidence, because neither is self-evident, or of necessity 
postulated, or comes within the range of sense, or of any 
experience. First, the creation of the material universe. 
And since this is neither self-evidently true, nor can be 
intrinsically or extrinsically proven, and therefore its. 
creator cannot be implied, he and it must be proven. The 
theist 's primal postulate is what the atheist denies, viz: 
Nature or the universe of matter, space and time was 
created from non-existence. Then its creator and its 
beginning are necessary logical inferences from this 
premise. Then the creator and not his created product, 
the universe, is the primal postulate, and he is the 
eternal and uncaused existence from which proceeds all 
that becomes. It is seen that this postulate divides into 
two parts, the first which is the formal primal, is an. 
historical fact to be proven. And a fact to be proven 
can never take the place of the primal postulate. And 
the intended theistic postulate is an inferential sequence. 
But it does not logically and really follow the proof of 
the proposition laid down. But any failure of demon- 
stration of creation leaves its full measure of inconse- 
quence of the creator. 

The atheist's primal postulate is: There is eternal 
uncaused existence. And as a logical demonstration to 
any who from lack of thought upon the subject, should 
fail to see this proposition to be self-evident, he says: 
Nothing can begin to exist without cause for beginning to 
exist. Nothing can be its own cause for beginning to 
exist. There is existence, therefore there is eternal un- 
caused existence; he does not have to prove creation 
from non-existence. Being obliged to grant existence as 
eternal and uncreated, creation is not necessitated as an 
averment or as a belief and if averred must be proved. 
The atheist calls up the universe in its totality, and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 169 

every individuality and personality of it, including the 
theist, to witness to its existence ; and asks, do you as the 
universe, and every particular part thereof, know your- 
self to be created from non-existence ? The universal 
response is, no. The theist then steps forth, and asks: 
Do you know yourself to be* eternal and uncaused exist- 
ence ? And the response is as universal, no. The atheist 
rejoins: My primal proposition which is incompatible 
with creation and creator, is not to be proven ab extra 
or by self -confession, but is self-evident from its neces- 
sity of being, and of itself containing causally and con- 
ditionally, all that becomes. The universe exists, and 
theism does not deny it. Atheism says, inasmuch as there 
must be eternal and uncaused existence (and theism says 
so too) the universe than which there is no known exist- 
ence known to be not therein included, must be the 
eternal uncaused existence, unless the contrary can be 
shown, and the burden of showing it is upon the theist. 
He affirms it. The theist will probably say : The creator 
has himself confessed to the creation of the universe, 
than which there can be no stronger proof of it. The 
atheist asks: Is the creator before the court in person? 
The theist answers no, but he has inspired holy men of 
old to make the announcement for him, and in his name. 
Then the demonstration of the creation of the universe 
on which the inference of a creator depends, drops from 
a necessary affirmation or a demonstrated fact, to a 
question of the competency and veracity of hearsay tes- 
timony, and the question of whether there be such a 
being, and if there is, whether he ever made such a 
declaration to men eons of ages this side of the event. 
The burden of proof is upon the theist. Atheism shows 
its position to be that of a possessor of as against an 
adverse claimant. It has not in the first place to show 
its right of possession, for possession implies the right. 
But the claimant must defeat the right of the possessor 
by showing his paramount right of possession. The athe- 



170 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ist or non-creationist says, the universe of matter and 
energy, space and time, is, exists and is ongoing, and the 
quantity thereof is fixed and persistent, and gives no 
evidence of having ever begun or ever been created from 
nothing. It is the sum and every particular of all that 
is, ever was, or can be. It" affords the needed grounds 
of all we are or know and of our knowing. It is the 
whole of all that is known and all knowers. And the 
totality is knowable. All things and all thinking are in, 
and of, and cannot be out of, or beyond, the infinite 
quantity of the substantive universe and its changing 
becomings. Theism itself and atheism and religions are 
phenomena of the human part of nature or the universe. 
They are simply affirmation and denial of certain propo- 
sition al ideas, fundamental in philosophy and religion, 
far reaching and influential, to be sure, and now put 
over moral character. For moral character is human- 
istic, as distinguished from religiosity which is theistic. 
And giving to theism the fulness of its etymological 
meaning, in fetichistic savage and barbaric ages, or 
strata of a development, it covers the whole ground. 
Atheism is the after thought of larger intelligence and 
a more moral life. And theism, today and in Christen- 
dom, is disposed like the suddenly grown rich and occu- 
pying first place in society, to deny its birth, the foolish- 
ness of its grounding in fetichism, and the criminality 
of the teaching and doing of its not very remote ances- 
tors, and all because of their theism. And I do not re- 
member ever to have read of a crime committed simply 
on the ground that the committer of the crime was an 
atheist. For no intelligently persuaded atheist ever 
claimed it to be his duty, or he might, if he thought there 
was no after life in which to be punished, kill, steal and 
lie; or ever believed that atheism permitted or author- 
ized him to make war upon and exterminate the people 
of a nation or a province and enrich himself with the 
spoils, and occupy their lands and homes. These crim- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 171 

inalities of war are of record against theism as theism; 
against Hebraistic monotheism by direct command. See 
Deuteronomy XX, 16, 17. Against Christian theism, the 
offspring of Hebraism; Hellenism and Modernism, by 
implication, manifested by thanksgiving services to the 
Hebrew's God, as an acknowledgment of his approbation 
and deed, in killing, wounding and destroying, on the 
winning of a battle. And against Mohammedanism by 
command of Allah's prophet. See Sale's Koran, page 
375. And it is said that Buddhism, which is atheistic 
and was formally intensely missionary, never propagated 
itself by wars or other criminal acts. Theism denies all 
that is known as substantive and persistent existence to 
be that which must be postulated as the eternal and un- 
created, and substitutes a myth, a legend, a mere empty 
assertion. But it is evident that such cannot be the nec- 
essary postulate on which rest all changing phenomena. 
We must of necessity grant that there is eternal quanti- 
tative existence, within whose intrinsic nature resides 
the full reason of all that becomes and ceases to be. And 
this is the first and inevitable postulate of theist and 
atheist. Neither creation nor creator can be this postu- 
late. And having of necessity granted eternal uncreated 
existence, there can arise no ground for the after allega- 
tion of creator or creation. 

Discussion 41. Why cannot the universe of matter, 
space and time be, and why is it not, the eternal uncre- 
ated existence and being within which potentially, there 
is the sum and difference of all that becomes, the pri- 
mary postulate of a universal, scientific, philosophy ? The 
subject matter of such philosophy must include the prin- 
ciples of philosophizing, the philosopher and his meth- 
ods, and it must ground on neither creation nor creator, 
nor on what needs proof, or proof can be demanded, but 
on the necessary primal postulate. Eternal quantitative 
substantive existence must have a mode of existing eter- 
nal and quantitative; which can found and express all 



172 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

force or energy, and all changing phenomena. This is 
realized in motion, which appertains to every particle 
and every mass of matter. This simply declares that 
universal and ever persistent motion and not absolute 
rest is the mode of existing of eternal matter. "All de- 
pends on matter and motion," says Secchi, the astrono- 
mer and Jesuit. "Matter possesses one inherent quality: 
it is constantly active," says Gerherdt, the French 
chemist. That matter is everywhere and always in mo- 
tion, is a common-place in scientific observation and 
demonstration, so far as knowledge of the universe ex- 
tends, and of legitimate inference beyond the domain of 
positive knowledge. The physics of to-day hold force or 
energy, which is motion of matter, to be as universal and 
unchangeable in quantity as matter. Matter no more ex- 
ists without motion, than motion without matter. Science 
plainly indicates both by what it declares and what it 
logically implies, that motion is the mode of existing of 
matter. Every change of temperature, every electrical 
or magnetic action, chemical combination or decomposi- 
tion, light, life, thought, feeling, growth, decay; all evo- 
lution and involution, all coming and ceasing of prop- 
erty or quality, involve motions of matter. 

The interpositional relations of matter together with 
its intrinsic nature or essential adaptedness to move 
rather than the inward essence of one everlasting posi- 
tional rest, may be said, not indeed to initiate motion 
in the universe, in the sense of a beginning, for there can 
be no beginning in the mode of existing of matter which 
did not itself begin to exist, but the interpositional and 
motive relations of matter which being inevitable cannot 
have been imposed, and its essential nature contain all 
the cause and determine all results of its movements. Tke 
universal tendency of matter to approach a material cen- 
ter, is expressed by the law of gravitation, — directly as 
the mass and inversely as the square of the distance. This 
shows that pure space distance and matter-masses are 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 173 

universal and prime elements in determining velocity 
and direction of motion. The only known partial excep- 
tions and indeed there are no exceptions, are the small 
and separated portions of matter that have become en- 
dowed with the properties of life. We know of nothing 
which changes space positions but matter and its belong- 
ings. All relations and actions are between one part of 
the matter of the universe and another, for there is noth- 
ing external thereto. Therefore all relations and actions, 
and all causes are internal to the universe. Consequent- 
ly the universe is one eternal and ever-continuing sys- 
tem. But as the law of attractive motion is opposed by 
the law of reaction or repulsion, all matter cannot be 
massed into unity. And here is a prime reason for hold- 
ing that it is the nature of matter to exist in distinct and 
separate quantities however small, as opposed to infinite 
divisibility. And to gather itself into atoms and mole- 
cules, and these into larger or smaller masses with sep- 
arate spaces between them for motions of each particle of 
matter. And these unions and motions are the varied ap- 
plications of the universal laws of gravitation and re- 
pulsion, and of motions as mode of existing of matter; 
and we have the full reason in general of all difference 
in phenomena. It is better to refer to unknown how and 
why of life and consciousness to the known rather than 
the absolutely unknown, — to matter in complex numeri- 
cal arrangement, the complexity of the mechanics being 
greatly increased by distinct motion of every particles 
making up the atom ; and it is said by the chemist that 
an atom of mercury is composed of 150,000 of such par- 
ticles, and heavier atoms of still more. And every atom 
moves as a whole within the molecule which is composed 
of many thousands of atoms, and every molecule moves 
independently within the group of many thousand mole- 
cules composing a mass too small to be visible to the un- 
aided eye. And all this machinery, not a confused, dis- 
orderly mass, but every particle, atom and molecule, and 



174 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

its separate motions are adjusted into order not by a 
guiding and coercing intelligence, either imminent or 
transcendent, but by the eternal and inevitable nature of 
matter and laws or relations necessitated by space and 
time. The origination of life and consciousness and the 
highest grades of intelligence cannot be deemed improb- 
able as functions of such mechanics. And the human 
brain and body are known to be such a mechanism. And 
such are known to belong wholly to the universe, which 
must contain all causes, processes and effects, all beings 
and all being. It is now held that the nature of all mat- 
ter is essentially one and the same. And all differences 
in the universe are to be accounted for, not by funda- 
mental differences of matter with mystical properties, 
manipulated by spirits everywhere bringing about all 
changes; nor by one all encompassing and creative intel- 
ligence causative of matter and all phenomena. For 
nothing becomes explained by being referred to the ab- 
solutely unknown. But by the one eternal self-existing 
matter or substance, which is the necessary primal postu- 
late, whose self-movements are determined in direction 
and velocity by the interelations of its positions. The 
problem of philosophy is to deduce from the primary 
postulate of matter and motion within the necessary con- 
ditions of space and time, all phenomena whatever. The 
universe in all its parts is intelligible, because it is one 
connected system of mechanics and their products. The 
utmost degree of intelligence is the self-evident. And 
action is necessarily involved in existing. 

Discussion 42. Matter is, in its nature, forceful and 
needs no force foreign to its* nature and suroundings to 
put and keep it in motions. And if it did, what could be 
the co-ercive cause outside, or within but not of the uni- 
verse? Let an entity beyond and not of matter and not 
under the conditions of space and time relations, of ade- 
quate knowledge and power to adjust and put into mo- 
tions every particle of matter and its star masses be 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 175 

pointed out or shown to exist and operate the universe. 
A name, a word, will not longer suffice and satisfy to be 
built thereon a traditional empire of what was never 
grounded on better authority than the visions, auditions, 
dreams and unhistorieal prodigies and thaumaturgies, of 
childish and barbaric minds, so far as proofs were de- 
manded or given. And this empire of superstition of 
many forms perhaps w T as never stronger in defenders 
than to-day. But many of its defenders would resist its 
founding to-day should it be attempted by the same evi- 
dences that initiated it. And this empire of superstition 
commands the consciences and conduct of millions of 
human beings under the threatened pains and penalties 
of and after life. It has been well said that "Between 
the attitude of mind which accepts a proposition on the 
authority of ecclesiastical tradition and the attitude 
which demands scientific evidence of its historical truth, 
there is no compromise." And such is the difference be- 
tween theology and its implications and science. It is 
not possible that any scientific verification can be given 
of theology. Which of the sciences may be called to 
prove the existence of a personality as creator of the 
material universe, the ordainer and manipulator of its 
mechanics, either directly and constantly and universal- 
ly, or by imposing laws or relations upon matter by 
Avhich the machinery shall work out the purposes of its 
designer and fabricator ? Or a being exists transcendent 
to the universe, or that such a being has anything to do 
with man as to his origin or destiny? Such affirmations 
belong to theology and religion. How are they to be evi- 
denced to the attitude of mind that demands scientific 
guaranty for what it holds to be true? Is the existence 
of such a being historical, or to be proven by historical 
evidence, or such a being implied from the existence of 
the universe ? Absolute creation or creator is not implied 
in positive existence. For the primary and necessary 
postulate grants eternal and uncreated existence. Or is 



176 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

such a being- to be discovered by the processes of 
thought? Can any proposition be more fanatical than 
that matter and all that is objective is brought into ex- 
istence as product of thought? If an objective ex- 
istence, must it not be material and acting under material 
relations and restrictions? Then anthropomorphic or 
otherwise, and an impossible creator of the universe? 
Discovered in thought and by thought and as thought? 
Then objectivity disappears, and the universe is but 
thought, and created by every man who thinks it and as 
he thinks it, and ceases to be when the thought of it 
ceases. What a monstrous, a ridiculous blunder ; that the 
persistent, substantial world of which we are, our wives 
and our children, of which we eat and drink, and was 
the same to our ancestors near and remote, to whom the 
same vastness and substance, and concerning which the 
same problems presented themselves and at which they 
worked, as to us, and we are still engaged upon, should 
be submerged, engulfed, lost in and identified with pure 
subjectivism, the triviality, the nothingness, a waking, 
deliberate dream, a void filled with another void, — a feel- 
ing! And matter, materialism, the presistent substance 
in constant change of positional relation, form and func- 
tion through its mode of existing in motions, the subject- 
matter of the sciences and philosophy, is ignored, denied 
a real existence independent of any knowledge of it. 
And a belated effect-consciousness, thought, the subject- 
ive state, the most helpless of all dependents, because the 
most refined, subtle, delicately poised, insinuating, sec- 
ondary agency, the commanding, executive selfhood, the 
offspring of a most complex mechanic, but which exists 
no longer than the mechanics endure. This ephemeral 
product, property or quality, caused by, existing and 
acting in, its material mechanism, which it did not form, 
but which is functioned by it, and changes as the mech- 
anism, changes, as does every non-living and non-con- 
scious property or quality change through changes in its 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 177 

producing mechanism, — has become the uncaused cause 
of itself, and of matter and materialism. ' ' The thinking 
ego is the source of all knowledge." "Objects must con- 
form to our mode of cognition." That is, objects are not 
in and of themselves, and in their own right of being, but 
only come into being when and as, and because we think 
them ! 

Hut all the ego can truthfully affirm itself to be, 
tracing its pedigree back to its primary ancestry ; as the 
beautiful lily is traceable to the muck and slime of the 
pond; the temperature, that is, a certain degree of mo- 
tion of the elementary particles of matter concerned in 
'its becoming; and the brooding and nourishing atmo- 
sphere ; and the light, a wonderful, perhaps a universal 
life-giving energy not supposed to be itself alive, a vibra- 
tory motion of the ether at terrific speed that envelopes 
every least physical and chemical particle of matter, the 
degree of speed within a local whole, determines the light 
as light, and its various colors, to an appreciative ob- 
jective; how unlike the lily-making to the lily-made, — 
its form, parts, coloring, and emitted fragrance, — all its 
forming and endowing progenitors. And every property 
of a chemical compound, or a physical complex is trace- 
able to constituents destitute of the property ; so the ego 
is the simple, substantial, conscious intelligence, as func- 
tion, or quality, or product, of its necessary and eternal 
intelligible (but not intelligent) objective, substantial, 
material, ancestry; that is, the objective takes on the con- 
sciousness of itself, and becomes, — generates, the sub- 
jective or self or ego, as a very specialized secondary 
and derived volitionally active agency, utterly dependent 
not only on their primary elements of matter, but on 
their continuance in the same physical arrangement of 
position and motion, through their continual elimination 
and replacement by others like them for being as it is ; as 
the acidity of sulphuric acid is a secondary and derived 
non-volitional product and agency dependent on a cer- 



178 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tain chemical, that is, mechanical union, of non-acid sul- 
phur and non-acid oxygen and non-acid hydrogen gases r 
a living capacity, faculty and receptivity, an effective 
putting forth of this unique and supreme character 
mark — awareness of positive existence and relations 
which have generated it, — the very self. 

Discussion 43. Material existence and its positional 
and motive interrelations to itself through motions and 
affinities which are involved in its nature, have gener- 
ated every property, quality and attribute of the phe- 
nomenal world, as summarized in physics, chemistry and 
other sciences including psychics. None of which prop- 
erties bring into the organism any new matter, as an en- 
tity in which they inhere or whose essence they are, or 
remove any when they cease. Vitalization, thinking, 
feeling, add no matter or substance to the organism en- 
gaged in its activities. These material organisms are vi- 
talized, think and feel, as the result of the moving me- 
chanics of their matter. It is by the moving mechanics of 
the brain, nerves and muscles that we think, speak and 
act ; or more corectly the I, self, ego, is not an entity sep- 
arable from and independent of matter, but it is the 
function of the mechanics aforesaid. It is the mechanics 
of my watch that keeps time. It is the specific arrange- 
ment of the particles of matter among themselves 
through their natural self -affinities (no better word has 
yet been found to express their action) and the interre- 
lated motions of the constituents of an acid which are 
not themselves acid, that, as yet in some unintelligent 
Avay generate or function acidity, .And so as to all 
chemical, physical and psychical properties. Vitaliza- 
tion implies some kind and degree of awareness. This 
property grows and develops into distinct and clear 
consciousness and thought, discriminating self from not 
self, with all the subtleties and potencies of intellectual 
greatness, beatific rapture and inconsolable despair, ac- 
cording to the internal state of the brain and the exter- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 179 

nal environment of the organism. All living and non- 
living things are composed of one and the same matter, 
now that the TO or 80 atomic differences are resolvable 
in theory into one substance, no matter by what name 
called, whether electricity, matter or what not. All 
things and all differences come of this one substance, 
according to the present status of science. It has be- 
come living, aware, conscious, thinking, emotional, self- 
active, discriminating and choosing, through cosmic 
operations, and through cosmic operations will cease to 
be so. Dead matter is continually becoming alive, 
aware, conscious, as it is incorporated into the living 
'body by ingestion, digestion and assimilation, and in all 
living bodies matter is dying and disintegrating and re- 
turning to the inorganic kingdom from which it has been 
raised to consciousness, but not by the agency of con- 
sciousness. Life is the function of the non-living Con- 
sciousness and all the word denotes and connotes, is a 
quality and whose value is dependent on its independent 
variables — the complexity and normal working of the 
interrelated material constituents of the organism. And 
its changes depend upon changes in these variables. It 
is a function of the variable mechanics of the organism, 
and the organism a product of cosmic forces and condi- 
tions. All life appears one in kind, and universalis 
kindred. The properties of it are one increasing and 
differentiating quantity without losing its fundamental 
identity, from the simple awareness of the protista, to 
the verifications of the scientist and the concepts and 
demonstrations of the mathematician and philosopher, 
from the one celled organism to the organism of millions 
of cells, all working singly and variously to one confed 
erated end of the individual, but not guided by conscious 
purpose beyond the individual. There is a state, a 
tendency, an inclination, a disposition towards a propen- 
sity, an aptness to become, a preparedness to act, to 
take position, all which ma} r be regarded as potential 



180 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

functions involved in the eternal nature of matter or 
substance, determined and actuated by local circum- 
stances as special instance of the universal mode of sub- 
stance existing in motion rather than in absolute quies- 
cence, where would be fixed positional order but could 
be no kinetic energy, or changing form or event. Uni- 
versal and eternal motion is the force of the universe. 
And from the necessary principles of positional and 
moving order involved in the validities of space and 
time, the kosmos is inevitable. Universe equals Kosmos. 
Universal order is eternal and necessary, not determined 
by intelligence nor predestined by divine decree before it 
was so. Intelligent purpose and volitional power, i. e., 
consciousness acting upon matter through the action of 
matter, is very limited in its range, is often without pow- 
er to execute its purpose and is confined to an organism 
of living matter. And itself is the function of the high- 
est specialized complex of positions and motions of 
matter known, organized by cosmic forces without intel- 
ligent purpose, i. e., without consciousness and final 
cause. 

Discussion 44. That physical and chemical proper- 
ties should be involved in and evolved from a material 
complex without involving intelligent purpose as a fac- 
tor either in the make-up of the complex or in the evo- 
lution of properties, is not now called in question so 
far as I know, except on theological grounds, or by a 
few who hold contrary to any evidence, that matter itself 
is everywhere alive and conscious. But how or why 
properties of a complex arrangement of particles of mat- 
ter among themselves should be so unlike those of their 
separate constituents, is as yet a profound mystery. And 
perhaps no scientific attempt at explanation has been 
seriously entered upon. The theological answer, "God 
so ordained things to be," still satisfies the great multi- 
tude, if the question ever occurs to them. 

It is the unique distinction of the psychic from the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 181 

non-conscious function of material mechanics that is 
able to announce itself through an arbitrary metaphysic 
where nothing is discovered by a contemplated inward 
gaze, but an aristocratic sentiment, to be an immaterial 
entity, a spirit, ego, an order of being separate and apart 
from matter, its originator and master, and not its off- 
spring and dependent. But consciousness that so an- 
nounces itself is a material affair and comes forth from 
a physical and chemical organism and not otherwise, 
and cannot trace itself or any of its constituent elements 
outside the domain and working of matter. No imma- 
terial entitative substance, i. e., persistent, identical 
quantitative existence is known. It is a needless assump- 
tion. Such conjectures are left to the faith and teach- 
ing of theologians and the uncultured intellect in the 
facts and doings of nature. Matter appears as surely 
to be the sole ground of psychic as of non-psychic phe- 
nomena. When the thinking self can show step by step, 
as in the solution of a mathematical problem, how and 
why physical and chemical properties emerge from 
combinations of constituent elements utterly void of 
these properties, the thinking self will probably be able 
to show how the self emerges from constituents utterly 
void of the self. Should one say, consciousness is a func- 
tional product of a different order of being from phy- 
sical and chemical functions and cannot be deduced 
from physics and chemistry, and for its ground of be- 
coming must have something essentially different from 
and other than matter and complex interrelations with 
itself in positions and motions. For its being it must 
have a substance not material. If this pure hypothesis 
can be sustained by such evidence as grounds all differ- 
ence and ail phenomena in one material substance, the 
evidence of sense, experimentation and all that mechan- 
ics and mathematical evidence makes for the material 
view, such evidence of an immaterial substance, called 
soul or spirit, deserves attentive consideration. But no 



182 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

such evidence can be adduced. The objection to a ma- 
terial and Kosmic basis for consciousness amounts to this 
and nothing more. "Matter cannot become living and 
conscious of itself; its interrelations, properties, and 
functions alone through its own nature and all that is 
connected by Kosmic forces besides, whatever these may 
be. " It is simply a verbal negation upon the powers of 
matter and nature, and not a showing through the proofs 
of sense or otherwise of the existence of an immaterial 
substance, an abiding entity, called soul, spirit or what 
not, but not material. What is the evidence that imma- 
terial spirit, if there be such, can think, feel and espec- 
ially could have created matter, arranged it and put it 
all in motions as a kosmos? But this assumed entity is 
never presented to sense or consciousness. The self never 
witnesses to such causation of itself. It never discovers 
its parentage in an immaterial entity. It is a pure fic- 
tion. The properties or functions of this assumed entity 
are held to be consciousness and intuitive and discursive 
thinking. And the evidence sustaining the assumption of 
such entity and such functions should at least be as con- 
vincing to the adult unprejudiced science-cultured 
mind, as is the evidence that material substance exists. I 
say scientifically cultured, because in this state only is 
probative evidence properly appreciable, and can be so 
handled as to set forth and defend it in the most per- 
spicacious manner. And what I mean by matter or ma- 
terial substance, as was early stated in this essay, is, eter- 
nal, uncaused and by consequence, everlasting quanti- 
tative existence. And the implication is that there is and 
can be but one such substance, and this is the only 
ground and seat of all properties, functions and changes, 
and forces, whatsoever, whether inanimate, animate, or 
psychic, that anyone has ever proposed and successfully 
defended. And these all are effected by evolution 
through the mechanics of the one substance in related 
positions and motions, and life and consciousness and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 183 

volitional acts are among these evolved products. Seven- 
ty or eighty eternal and uncreated kinds of self -existing 
substances might be so manipulated as to antagonize the 
reasonableness that so many fundamental kinds could be 
eternal and uncaused. But the latest scientific evidence 
is that these 70 or 80 kinds are made so by the trans- 
muting effect of positions and motions of one identical 
substance, as expressed in chemical unions. And this has 
greatly strengthened the materialistic view of the uni- 
verse and its becomings. Because it certifies to the amaz- 
ing fact of radically differing results from the permuta- 
tion of positions and motions of an infinite number of 
units of essentially the same form and nature. 

Discussion 45. We have before remarked and it 
seems little if anything less than an axiomatic truth, that 
nature is everywhere intelligible; and intelligence is the 
necessary supplement to intelligibility in the complete- 
ness and whole of nature. And nature or the universe in 
its substance being eternal and uncaused, and motion in- 
volved as mode of existing of substance, and time and 
space orderly relating all motions and positions, intelligi- 
bility is inevitable, and has become conscious of itself. 
Or intelligible and intelligence are a dual fact, the relate 
and the correlate. The intelligible universe is everywhere 
open to intelligence through the function of the most 
complex of all complexes, the human material organism. 
And a legitimate inference from this view is that there 
is no such radical distinction as knowable phenomena 
and unknowable phenomena, or things in themselves, all 
is knowable. It should be remembered that theology and 
ecclesiasticism for centuries effectually blocked the at- 
tainment of the real knowledge of physical and psychic 
facts of nature, and only after the most severe struggle 
involving confiscation of property, imprisonment, torture 
and death, have uninterrupted inquiries into nature been 
permitted. As long as a created universe, a creating God 
after the teachings of Descartes, Leibnitz and others, 



184 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

were the prime assumptions ; and no conflicting thoughts,- 
convictions or mental efforts, were allowed expression by 
the church, and deductions from these assumptions were- 
the only methods of determining what nature is, and all 
difficulties were finally settled by declaring that such and 
such is the will and act of God, nothing decisive could 
be learned in science or philosophy. The word God as a 
finality stood behind and in the midst of every fact, 
truth and phenomenon, as direct and immediate, or in- 
direct and remote cause, and the final ansAver of all ques- 
tions was "God made it so." "God made it impossible 
that two straight lines should inclose a space, and two 
parallel lines should never converge or further diverge,, 
though indefinitely prolonged." And it follows if so 
made or so ordained, they would not otherwise have been 
truths, and their converse might as well have been made 
or constituted truths, if God had so willed it. This arbi- 
trarily assumed final answer to all questions, and un- 
known quantity and power, everywhere present and 
either directly or indirectly doing every thing, can never 
be resolved into known quantity or power, and there is 
no ultimate and fixed intelligibility of the universe, or 
science or philosophy, of the same. If the universe is a 
manufactured thing from nothing, or created from non- 
existence, a greater impossibility, inconceivability, and 
absurdity cannot be expressed in words ; then all axio- 
matic and mathematical and logical truths are manufac- 
tured articles, and they stand as truths no longer than 
the manufacturer choses to have them, and he has power 
to nullify as it must be granted he has, if he had power 
and authority to ordain them truths. Then all things rest 
on the caprice of their author. There is nothing ulti- 
mate but that caprice. But let us change the view some- 
what and ask from whence in human consciousness are 
the self-evident, universal, or first truths, concerning 
which there has been and continues to be much dispute. 
Are they original elements in part constitutive of mind r 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 185 

as angle is in part constitutive of triangle, or center is in 
part constitutive of circle, or are they merely and per- 
haps unconsciously generalized human experiences and 
we can go no further, fixed in brain organization by their 
constant and invariable realization in experience, and 
passed on to posterity by inheritance, so that they can 
now be neither denied nor doubted, nor their contraries 
conceived? Whence could arise their constant and uni- 
versal occurrence in human experience, unless they are 
involved in the very being of nature and in part consti- 
tutive of her intelligibility ? But intelligence the correlate 
of intelligibility, implies and grounds in mathematical, i. 
e., mechanical and logical order, therefore they are and 
must 'be in part constitutive of intelligence. These truths 
being presupposed in all existence and action inanimate 
and animate, it is not necessary that they should always 
rise above the threshold of consciousness in all the activi- 
ties of intelligence. Human reason and reasoning are the 
correlate of nature's processes. The mathematics, logical 
induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis and all 
verifiable knowledge (and there is no science that is not 
verifiable) prove the harmony between being and know- 
ing. Being is primary, knowing is secondary and de- 
rived. This is evident since being must be presupposed 
in order that there can be knowing. Being has discovered 
itself to itself by becoming consciously individualized. 
This specific, organic, determinant, individuant, biologi- 
cal intelligence, is the conscious realization of existence, of 
its processes and its becomings. In much the language of 
Descartes, but with very different meaning, we think the 
being and proceedings of nature instead of thinking the 
thoughts of God, as he put it. Nature is envisaged in her 
own consciousness of herself. To make some inadequate 
comparisons but having some similitude' of conception; 
nature superposes her intelligibility upon our organic 
receptivity which she has prepared to take the im- 
pression, and thus the antitype becomes the correlate, the 



186 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

counterpart, or conscious intelligence of the type ; or she 
impresses upon material organisms which she has vivified 
and made conscious of more or less and in a greater or 
Jess degree of certitude and vividness her infinite forms 
and functions and becomings. She generates the convic- 
tion in consciousness that all her processes and events are 
causal and consequential to the last degree. The abstract 
mathematical and logical processes of intelligence are 
nature's concrete proceedings and becomings. And this 
is proved by the superposing harmony between the with- 
in and the without, and sanctions the correctness of cal- 
culations. 

The assumption that positive existence and its nec- 
essary pre-suppositions, — space and time, depend 'upon 
their absolute creation from non-being, rest upon noth- 
ing but the preposterous assertion of an existence capa- 
ble of the impossible and self-contradictory task of cre- 
ating something, that is, all there is, — the universe out of 
nothing. And is, as I have insisted, a human imbecile 
gratuity, and presents no explanation of what is, since 
creation of matter is inconceivable, is not a necessary af- 
firmation and can not be proven ; and then creator can- 
not be implied. And also, since the primary and neces- 
sary postulate is not creation nor creator, but eternal 
uncaused existence, created existence and creator are set 
aside by the necessary assumption of eternal existence. 
And what is, and did not begin to be cannot cease to be ; 
we have a necessary ground of assurance of a permanent 
universe, ever changing in form and function. It would 
be surprising if it had not been so long continued and 
were not so common, and some men of strong and critical 
intellects in some directions were not very weak in others, 
and hold some false and absurd notions in the judgment 
of their peers, 'that intelligent men can be persuaded to 
believe that somebody's assertion that "God created the 
heavens and the earth," therefore the said creation is a 
fact and was a concrete production. "There are Gods 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 187 

many, ' ' and any one of the many was just as competent 
to the bringing of something out of nothing as any other 
of the many, since all the evidence of it is the naked as- 
sertion uncorroborated by the illustration of the creation 
of a single atom of matter, or how it could be done, or 
any verifiable knowledge or possible conception of a be- 
ing adequate to the task of creating concrete existence 
from non-existence. Creation is a mythical tradition of 
remote undeveloped man to satisfy the common human 
nature that demands a cause for all appearance; an in- 
vented story, purely fabulous and having no existence in 
fjact. The Gods were mythical personages invented to ac- 
count for things. How they did the marvels ascribed to 
them seems never to have been questions that rose above 
the threshold of conscious inquiry. And it is true, to-day, 
and separates the religious from the scientific spirit. The 
doings of Gods, the many or the one, do not enter into 
any science or scientific teaching to-day. I do not accord 
to theology scientific truth. 

Creation of the material worlds is neither a sensible, 
an ideal, a historical, nor a necessary assumption. Nor 
can any theological or religious assertions prove it. It 
cannot be thought, nor do the laws of thought demand 
its averment ; nor does its denial involve an absurdity ; as 
the illimitation of space cannot be thought, but its de- 
nial involves an absurdity. Creation has left no marks 
upon the universe from which it can be inferred. Ge- 
ology furnishes evidences, for inference, of mutations 
and their proximate causes which have taken place in 
the earth's crust in remote ages and are still in opera- 
tion, and some evidence of the present internal state of 
the earth. Spectrum analysis gives evidence that some 
kinds of matter known on earth are in the sun, the 
planets, and fixed stars, which, with universal gravita- 
tion, affords some grounds for the implication that 
throughout the universe, matter is one in its nature. And 
Astronomy discovers to us the interrelations of the 



188 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

bodies of matter in space. But the creation of matter has 
left no evidence upon itself from which its beginning to 
exist can be inferred, or of a time when it did not ex- 
ist. The universe of matter is ever changing in its in- 
finite self-functioning through its intrinsic forces, pre- 
senting different becomings and events, and of interrela- 
tions of positions by its motions, and consequently di- 
versity of results, attributes, properties, etc., while its 
quantity of substance and energy and capability remain 
ever the same. But there is no evidence yet discovered 
that matter ever began to exist, or the objective validi- 
ties of space and time ever began to be, or that matter in 
any respect has ever changed obediently to a supernat- 
ural cause, or that there is or can be a supernatural cre- 
ative being, or a supernatural cause. Functions apper- 
tain to inanimate as well as animate nature. The physi- 
cal, chemical and psychical, are functions of matter in- 
terrelated in positions and motions. Creation as a theory 
is impossible of development, and as an averment is im- 
possible of proof. It is not included in the scientific con- 
sciousness. Therefore it may well be denied. It is evi- 
dent that of the two magnitudes, — matter and force, if 
either increase or diminish in quantity, both must do so 
in the same ratio. And it seems reasonable to believe that 
if the quantity of normal physiological activity be in- 
creased or diminished, there will be a reciprocal ratio of 
change in life and intelligence or muscular action, as 
they are interrelated quantities. There are the theolog- 
ical, theoretical attempts to account for the human soul 
or spirit considered as a substantive entity. "Creation- 
ism is a term used to denote one view of the origin of 
the human soul, and stands in opposition to the two 
others designated as Traducianism and Pre-existence. 
The question is whether the soul of each man is immedi- 
ately created by God and joins the embryo just after 
conception; or whether it is derived from the first man 
and is propagated along with the bodj^ by natural gen- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 189 

eration; or whether it has existed from the beginning, 
and when born into the world has simply a new mani- 
festation. "The last mentioned is borrowed by Origin 
from Plato, held by John Scotus Erigena, and defended 
by some moderns, as Kant and Julius Muller. The second 
view was taught by Tertullian, and for some time pre- 
vailed in the Western Churches, and as it best explains 
the problem of hereditary sin, has been adopted by all 
the Lutheran divines. The first view, that of a divine 
concursus at the origin of each individual was adopted by 
Augustine and Leo the Great, and became a conspicuous 
feature of the whole system of Anselm and Thomas 
Aquinas. In modern times it has been advocated by most 
Roman Catholics and Reformed theologians, mainly be- 
cause it agrees best with the prevailing representations 
of Scripture, is most consistent with the indivisible 
nature of the soul, and explains the freedom of Christ's 
soul from sin though he was born of a woman. There 
are a few who hesitate to decide with either, and say 
with Augustine : ' ' When I wrote my former book I did 
not know how the soul derived its being, and I do not 
know now." Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge. 
Discussion 46. "Among the ancient philosophers of 
every school it was universally accepted as an indubita- 
ble axiom, that the origination of any new existence out 
of nothing is impossible, that is, "Ex nihilo nihil fit." 
Therefore all theists and atheists alike repudiated the 
idea of creation. Plato and Aristotle held that there are 
two self -existent principles, — God and matter. Since the 
Christian era all who acknowledge the Holy Scriptures 
to be the word of God agree in maintaining the doctrine 
of God's absolute creation of the universe, alike matter 
and form, out of nothing by his mere power." Outlines 
of Theology by A. A. Hodge. Here are two gratuitous 
assumptions from the scientific standpoint. First, that 
the universe is not the eternal and uncreated existence 
that of necessity must be postulated; for this postulate 



190 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

of uncreated existence must of necessity be granted. And 
eternal and uncaused existence granted, there can be no 
necessity to aver creation of existence out of nothing, 
corroborated as the material universe is as being the ex- 
istence that must be postulated by both the theoretical 
and practical proof of the quantitative conservation of 
matter and energy, and the impossibility of transcending 
the universe for existence not included in it, or in it and 
not of it. And second, that there is a being who could 
and did create the universe, matter and form out of noth- 
ing, simply and only on the authority of an ancient 
anonymous writing, much of which is obviously fab- 
ulous; and self -conflicting as it seems to the writer, is 
declared to be mythical and legendary by some professed 
Christian teachers. The first is without necessity of alle- 
gation as we have shown, and if alleged behooves to be 
proved. The second by no possibility can be established, 
and is so stupendous an achievement as to dwarf all 
other fabulous statements to commonplace acceptance. It 
is conceded by the Rev. Hodge that outside the influence 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, theists and atheists alike held 
it to be a physical axiom that there could be no origina- 
tion of existence out of nothing. And viewing creation 
of the universe as an actual productive act, it could 
never be proven true to the normal intelligent and criti- 
cal mind, or to the scientifically instructed intellect, were 
its only evidence its dogmatic assertion found in the 
Bible. The developed human mind could not be con- 
vinced of such impossible product by such inadequate 
evidence, had it not antecedently to its scientific develop- 
ment believed the said Scriptures from considerations 
quite different from the scientific consciousness. Scien- 
tific men, if there are such that accept the Jewish Scrip- 
tures as saying the truth whatever they say, have come 
to this conclusion on other grounds than scientific rea- 
sons and before they became well educated into the exact 
sciences. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 191 

It may be denied that the pursuit of an exact sci- 
ence, as physics, chemistry, astronomy, or mathematics, 
is adapted to initiate the conviction of the creation of 
the universe out of nothing ; or rather it may be affirmed 
that these studies are adapted to dissuade from this con- 
clusion should creation be suggested by anyone, since at 
every step in the pursuit of these sciences, go back so far 
as we may in time, there is implied a previous time. And 
this fact would not convince the reason that there is and 
must be a limit to the regression and a termination in 
non-existence ; or reach an existence which in its nature, 
attributes and mode of being, has nothing in common 
with the material space and time-universe, because the 
existence reached is their absolute creator from non-be- 
ing. But scientific knowledge can never legitimate the 
physical or logical inference of an absolute creation or a 
creator. 

Religionists do not pretend to found their dogmas 
on scientific proofs, or on such criticised evidence as 
Avould sustain an averment in the alightened judgment 
of judge and jury of any court in Christendom. The 
Jewish and Christian religions found on a supposed 
verbal revelation with miraculous deeds, the latest being 
nearly 2,000 years ago. But there is no record of these 
extant and probably there never were any witnesses to 
them or record made of them, except by Jews who were 
antecedently disposed to believe not only, but to invent, 
for their tribal policy of government was a priestly craft 
of imposition, as was common throughout the world in 
those remote ages. Religionists override and set at naught 
in the sweep of their childish faith much that is the com- 
mon-sense of enlightened men, and of themselves when 
directed towards any other subject, and accept as proofs 
of their religion the like of what they reject as evidence 
when alleged in proof of another religion. Men are not 
stronger antagonists to one another in anything than in 
their religions. Nothing is plainer than that all relig- 



192 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ions are matters of tuitional education resting on the 
universal conviction of the mystery of existence and of 
destiny. There are some self-evident primary truths 
which the educated creatonist seeks to avoid or ignore, 
because they cannot be disposed of in consistency with 
his notions of absolute creation, viz : the universal and 
unconditioned objective, and because objective therefore 
subjective, validities of space and time, the underlying 
and pervading principles of the certitude of the mathe- 
matics and of all calculation and observation of the ma- 
terial and psychic universe, and the impossibility that 
the developed intellect can accept their creation or begin- 
ning. For these truths are certain, a priori, or as first 
principles, and are absolutely necessary, the measure and 
pre-supposition of all apodictic certainty, the material 
and intelligible order of all things. These uncaused 
orders appertain to all existence and phenomena, and can 
not be imposed, or nullified, or modified, by any will, 
purpose or power. A distinguished author says: "It is 
impossible to imagine that there should be no space, 
though one might very well imagine that there should be 
space without objects filling it. Space is therefore re- 
garded as a condition of the possibility of phenomena, 
not as a determination produced by them." "On the ne- 
cessity of the a priori presentation of space rests the 
apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles, and the 
possibility of their construction a priori. For if the in- 
tuition of space were concept gained a posteriori, bor 
rowed from general external experience, the first princi- 
ples of mathematical definition would be nothing but 
perceptions." "Space is not a discussive or so-called 
general concept of the relations of things in general, but 
a pure intuition." "Time is a necessary representation 
on which all intuitions depend. We cannot take away 
time from phenomena, though we can well take away 
phenomena out of time. Time therefore is given a priori. 
In time alone is reality of phenomena possible. All 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 193 

phenomena may vanish, but time itself cannot be done 
away with. On this a priori necessity depend also the 
possibility of apodictic principles of the relations of 
time, or of axioms of time in general. Different times 
are not simultaneous but successive, while different 
spaces are never successive, but simultaneous." The 
foregoing quotation is hardly harmonious with what the 
same author elsewhere in the same book, says upon the 
same subject of space and time. If it is impossible to 
imagine that there should be no space, as it certainly is, 
though one can imagine there should be no objects filling 
space ; and if all phenomena may vanish, but time itself 
cannot be done away Avith, these expressions seem to ne- 
cessitate the unconditioned, unoriginated and abiding 
being of space and time, independent of us, and of any 
consciousness of them, while we have the apodictic cer- 
tainty of them in the mathematics. These truths our 
author maintains bear the character of inward necessity, 
.and are independent of experience, clear and certain in 
themselves, and are therefore called knowledge a priori. 
But he afterwards seems to call the affirmations in ques- 
tion. "Time, " he says, "is not something existing by it- 
self, or inherent in things as an objective determination 
of them, something that might remain when abstraction 
is made of all subjective conditions of intuitions. If we 
drop the subjective forms of our senses, all qualities, all 
relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time 
themselves would vanish. They cannot exist by them- 
selves, but in us only. Space and time are pure forms of 
our intuitions." Us, presumably means human beings, or 
at most sensuous beings. Then there was neither where 
nor when until there was sensibility that space and time 
might become forms of! We are persuaded that space 
and time are unconditioned conditions of all permanent 
existence and all becoming phenomena, and owe nothing 
to sensitivity. For all that exists, and all that becomes, 
and all that ceases, presuppose space and time, as where 



194 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and when ; and of equal necessity are affirmed though we 
should affirm no existence and no becoming. And should 
we suppose our own non-existence and that of every 
sense perceiving and every other being, we could not 
reasonably affirm the non-being of space and time, but 
only their non-being to us, because of our own non-being. 
Space and time are the background or the fixed ultimates 
and abstract standards of all measurements, and the 
mathematics are the methods of their ascertainment and 
application, the science which treats of the relations of 
concrete existence and change to these standards. Space, 
Kant says, is not a concept of the relations of things in 
general, but a pure intuition. I see no ground to hold 
that if space is a pure intuition, it cannot for that reason 
be an intuitive concept of the relations of things in gen- 
eral. That space and time interrelate all existence and 
phenomena is self-evident. Geometrical magnitudes and 
forms are first thought of space, and concrete existence 
is wrought to these models in architecture and construc- 
tions, not only of human beings, but in all animate and 
inanimate nature. They not only cover intention, but 
spontaneity. Abstract mathematics are the standard of 
proof of the concrete, and treat of magnitudes and forms, 
and numbers discrete and growing by infinitesimal in- 
crements, and so commands motions of all degrees of 
velocity ; whose deepest underlying, necessary, universal, 
a priori, all embracing and eternal facts and truths, un- 
impeachable and unmodifiable, are space and time. These 
verities of primal being are not dependent on any sup- 
posable conditions. "But the basis of all scientific ex- 
planation consists in assimilating all concrete facts to 
these standard facts and verities." The Infinitestimal 
Calculus, called also Transcendental Analysis, a branch 
of mathematical science, commands by one general math- 
od, the most difficult problems of geometry and physics. 
The Infinitesimal Calculus, both in its pure and applied 
forms, whether of geometry or mechanics, is a branch of 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 195 

the science of number. It regards number as continuous, 
i. e., as being capable of gradual growth. The simplest 
idea of a differential is got by considering number as 
made up of infinitesimal elements, and a differential or 
infinitesimal as being the value of the difference between 
a number at one stage of its growth and at another very 
near it. The Integral Calculus deals with the universe of 
the Infinitesimal. The whole of the lunar and planetary 
theories may be described as an application of the In- 
tegral Calculus. It is applied in the investigations of 
hydrostatics and hydro-dynamics. It is the instrument 
without which most of the leading triumphs in physical 
science could never have been achieved." There are 
various methods of mathematical science, all treating of 
common and special relations of things in general, and 
all based on the intuitive, universal and necessary truths 
of space and time. These abstract magnitudes and forms 
and numbers and relations of space and time inevitably 
carry with them exact correlates of positive existence and 
motions, i. e., all changes, if such there be. They are, and 
owe no dependence of being upon material or psychic ex- 
istence, or any other. Their being cannot be affected by 
material or psychic existence or non-existence. They are 
neither the one nor the other. They do not necessarily 
imply any existence whatever, but are the Where and 
when of all existence whatever. 

We may well say they are a priori in the most posi- 
tive and universal import. They are the subjective 
forms of our sense intuitions, our sense appreciations, be- 
cause they are the forms of all external and internal 
things and events. The internal implies the external and 
could not be without it, for if it is, it must be somewhere 
and space is everywhere. Space cannot be affected by 
what is in it, or by its state or conditions; nor time by 
what is in it, or transpires or endures in it. Space and 
time are where matter and motion, and thought and feel- 
ing are, and where they are not. Space and time are in 



196 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

matter, and motion, and thought and feeling; and mat- 
ter, and motion and thought and feeling, are in space 
and time. These validities are universal and omnipres- 
ent being, and determine all existence and change. They 
can by no possibility be affected. Time is not a flowing 
stream, a flax ; is not separable into past, present and fu- 
ture, except as a convenient fiction for the advantage of 
speech and thought. Time is one and not many; is not 
differentiated by character-marks, neither is space. Posi- 
tive existence, and its changes are separable by many dif- 
ferences laid in an inseparable dual unity; infinite dis- 
similarity in the embrace of one eternal, universal, un- 
caused, unbroken, unmodifiable, unimpeachable and all 
command in g, unity of veracity. Space is pure infinite 
extension, time, pure infinite duration. They cannot be 
defined through genus and species, but only in equations 
of their own terms. Matter is extended and measured 
against the background of space. We cannot know that 
space is a plenum. Time and space are necessarily pre- 
supposed conditions, the laws and relations of quantita- 
tive, physical existence ; of its changes, its becomings, 
functions and properties, but not caused by them. And 
they are not existence in any physical sense. There are 
no presuppositions underlying these validities before the 
assent of their being can be granted. They do not admit 
of supposed creation, decree or ordination, or as product 
of thought, will or power, for they are antecedently im- 
plied in these processes. They are primary facts discov- 
ered by nature 's function of self -intelligence. They back 
and bank all other certitudes. Space is an infinite triply- 
extension, co-ordinate, homogeneous continuum abstract, 
and determining the laws of position, direction, distance 
and the place element of motion, of all positive physical 
existence. And time is an infinite, homogeneous con- 
tinuum of duration, giving the time-order of changes in 
real or ideal existence. All existential difference is of 
positive existence, and not of space or time per se. The 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 197 

laws of order are in these validities, — are these validities 
and command all existence and change. Philosophy as 
well as science and practical life found on these primary 
inevitable assumptions. Time and eternity are one and 
indistinguishable. Spaces are one and inseparable space. 
Time and space are nature's difference of measurement, 
her contrasted but agreeing verities, to which are adjust- 
ed the indefinitely small and the infinitely large. These 
patterns and forms of things and events, are always and 
everywhere set up for use, are never out of order, but 
their accurate use requires skill. Object and Subject, 
substance, motion, property and quality, thought and 
feeling, must have its where and when, form, how much, 
at what speed. 

Discussion 47. Aristotle declares that to know the 
physical cause is to know the efficient cause. And 
Francis Bacon said that physics is the ground and source 
of all science. No objective truth seems more evident, but 
no truth is more fiercely assailed, and the contrary is 
more generally accepted in Christendom. The affirmation 
or denial of this doctrine, is fundamental in one or the 
other of the opposing philosophies, the material or spir- 
itual. The theological philosophy of Christendom could 
not endorse the doctrine of Aristotle or Bacon ; nor could 
it accept Spinoza's Sixth Proposition — "One substance 
cannot create another substance, ' ' nor the Corollary from 
that proposition. "Hence it follows that substance can- 
not be created by anything else, for there is nothing else 
existing except substance and its modes." But Spinoza 
begins his definition with this self -contradictory and ab- 
surd declaration : "By a thing which is its own cause, I 
understand a thing the essence of which involves exist- 
ence; or the nature of which can only be considered as 
existent." That the absurd declaration of self -creation 
was not an inadvertence of speech, is shown by the end- 
ing of the Corollary in part quoted. "Now this sub- 
stance, not being created by another, is self-caused." 



198 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Spinoza did not wholly break with the teaching of 
Morteira and other Jewish Rabbins, for he retained in a 
more absurd form the most distinguished characteristic 
of his Hebrew blood and cult, — the easy faith of creation, 
and affirmed it to be self-creation. No greater self-con- 
tradiction can be perpetrated with language. For before 
we can suppose a thing can create itself, we must sup- 
pose itself already existing. So ingrained in warp and 
woof of his mental being was creation, that he says: 
"There must necessarily be a distinct cause for the ex- 
istence of every existing thing." Even God whose exist- 
ence he declared, he avows to be self -caused. "By a thing 
which is its own cause, I understand a thing, the essence 
of which involves existence; or the nature of which can 
only be considered as existent." (First Definition) "By 
Substance, I understand that which exists in itself, and 
is conceived per se; in other words, the conception of 
anything antecedent to it." (Third Definition) "By 
God I understand the Being absolutely infinite, i. e., the 
substance consisting of infinite Attributes, each of which 
expresses an infinite and eternal essence. Explanation: 
"I say, absolutely infinite, but not infinite suo genere; 
for what is infinite only suo genere, we can deny in- 
finite Attributes ; but that which is absolutely infinite in- 
cludes in its essence every thing which implies essence, 
and involves no negation." (Sixth Definition) "Two 
substances having different Attributes have nothing in 
common with each other. " (Proposition II.) "It is im- 
possible that there should be two or more substances of 
the same nature, or of the same Attributes." (Prop. 
V.) "One substance cannot be created by another sub- 
stance." (Prop. VI.) "There cannot be two substances 
with the same Attributes having anything in common 
with each other; and therefore (per Prop. III.) one can- 
not be the cause of the other. ' ' Demonst. ' ' Hence it fol- 
lows that substance can not be created by anything else. 
For there is nothing in existence except substance, and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 199 

its Modes; now this Substance, not being created by an- 
other, is self -caused. " Corollary. "It pertains to the 
nature of substance to exist." {Prop. VII.) Substance 
cannot be created by anything else, and is therefore the 
cause of itself." Demonst. "All substance is necessarily 
infinite." (Prop. VIII.) The Philososphy of Descartes 
and Spinoza, and also much of that today, was and is, 
deduced from an assumption which we are not necessi- 
tated to make, and of which we know and can know 
absolutely nothing whatever, not even its existence. 
Therefore the assumption is wholly gratuitous and need- 
less. There is a necessary and inevitable primal assump- 
tion concerning which we have no knowledge, and which 
involves within it all actual and possible being and be- 
comings. This necessary primal assumption as we have 
more than once insisted, is eternal, uncreated and un- 
caused being and substantive existence. This unavoid- 
able primal postulate grounds and includes all actual 
and potential cause, power, change, material and 
psychic; all activities, passivities, issues, aspects, and 
forms of existing and being. It is intended to include 
in, and charge this primal postulate by necessary impli- 
cation in its modes of existing, with all that is, ever has 
been, or ever can be, without the interference of any 
power without itself or within, but not of itself. For 
the reason that there is no without and no within other 
than itself. We do not recognize a supernatural and 
challenge its scientific proof. The Universe or Nature 
is the one-word expression of the all comprehensiveness 
of this inevitable assumption and its necessary belong- 
ings. And it renders impertinent and absurd to scien- 
tific data and logical reasoning the dogma of absolute 
creation of the universe, and consequently its creator. 
We cannot think, nor for the necessity of reason affirm a 
before substantive existence. By substantive existence 
I mean existence which in quantity can never be, and 
never has been either more or less than it is. The primal 



200 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

assumption in existence is already given of necessity. 
And its qualifiers must be eternal, uncreated and un- 
caused. And its implied necessary conditions are space 
and time, and modes. For to exist implies where, time 
and way of existing, as says a learned author: "The 
starting point for reflective thought must be a proposi- 
tion which includes all that is to be deduced. ' ' All be- 
comings and changes are evolved from, because involved 
in, what has eternally been and been ongoing, i. e., the 
universe, from causes within and of itself. All contin- 
gencies and allegations of the miraculous arise in thought 
from ignorance of natural causation. There is involved 
in, and compatible with, the certainties of nature, all 
that is free in will and voluntary in action. Capacity^ 
to learn and limited knowledge, are increased by in- 
ductive experience. But infinite knowledge would de~ 
duce all events and changes in the universe. 

" Theologico-metaphysical speculation, pursuing its. 
untrammeled course from generalization, to generaliza- 
tion, always reaches Pantheism. It sees God everywhere 
and in all things, because it is coerced by the logical im- 
possibility of separating God from existence or existence 
from God. This resolution of all things into one, of 
Nature into God, is a contradiction of all our experiences 
of a manifold. ' ' 

What is everywhere and in all things is indistin- 
guishable from all things, but distinguishable from "ev- 
erywhere, ' ' for there is no greater contrast than between 
thing and place for thing. And will any one deny that 
all we know and all we are, is of the universal all? We 
must start in our reasoning from what we know, and 
we know neither the creation nor the creator of some- 
thing from nothing, or existence from non-existence. 
Nor is creation or creator a self-evident first truth, nor 
a necessary implication from anything or from all we 
know. Nor is either a possible conception. No observa- 
tional, experimental, necessary inferential, or apodictic- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 201 

proof, or analogical reasoning, can be given of the crea- 
tion or of the creator of an atom of matter; nor can 
there be formed an adequate thought conception, or men- 
tal picture, of hoiv or by whom, or of ivhat, it could be 
done, much less the material universe. 

It is easy to say Almighty power and infinite wis- 
dom could have done it. But it is equally easy to say, 
and with quite as much reason, that there is an infinite 
impossibility against such a feat being done, and of 
there existing such power and wisdom, there is no proof. 
Of such existence I can form no adequate conception, 
neither is it an intuitive or necessary affirmation of the 
reason, or an historical fact. Neither does the assumed 
theory of creation or creator render us any help in our 
scientific investigation of nature. Nor is either postu- 
lated as, or the resultant conclusion of, any scientific, 
logical, mathematical or sensational premises. Science 
knows no creation out of nothing or creator. Nor is 
either an object of the imagination, but simply a gratu- 
itous assertion. 

That there is existence existing eternally, uncreated 
and uncaused is a proposition not reached in the child- 
hood of the race, or of the individual, or in puerile man- 
hood, but is inevitably reached in the process of philo- 
sophic reasoning, and is immediately seen to be a neces- 
sary, self-evident, and most fundamental and all-em- 
bracing truth, in what it asserts and in its implications. 
But no more to be conceived or mentally pictured than 
is it to be conceived the infinite extension of space, but 
is as much a necessary affirmation. This necessary phi- 
losophic affirmation is incompatible with the crass theo- 
logical dogma, which grounds in the faith of an historic 
creation and in the verbal allegation of a personal crea- 
tor of the world of matter. 

There is no beginning to exist of substantive exist- 
ence, or of the being of its unavoidably presupposed 
conditions — space and time. And what exists without 



202 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

beginning to exist must continue to exist without ceas- 
ing. And by inevitable implication it must be all that 
has perdured in one and the same quantity. And noth- 
ing that begins to exist can be its exact equal. And in 
the last analysis what begins must be the changes of that 
which is continually changing in place, form and func- 
tion, and evolving attribute, property and quality and 
whatever else is, and then is not. Change implies mo- 
tion. Then motion is an eternal and universal mode of 
existing of substance, and quantitatively fixed. Sub- 
stance must exist in motion or not in motion. And so far 
as observation or inferential thought can do, it is every- 
where in varied motions and nowhere at absolute rest. 
Movement of substance and not rest is essentially involv- 
ed in its eternal and uncreated nature as mode of exist- 
ing, and not enforced upon it from without, or by other 
than what is included in the expression — universe. For 
mode of existing and of being must be supposed self- 
included in what must be affirmed as existing and never 
beginning to exist, and of being and never beginning to 
be. The latter I mean of space and time, which must 
be distinguished from substantive existence and any of 
its phenomenal changes or emerging attributes. 

Discussion 48. Motion appertains alike to its mi- 
nutest parts and to these in their greatest aggregated 
masses. Nor are the smallest divisions of substance yet 
discovered, called corpuscles or electrons, and these con- 
structed into atoms, and these into molecules, and these 
into masses, not one of them anywhere is without posi- 
tional and motile interrelated order among themselves, 
and all by internal and external architectonic forces, 
ordered without design or designer or conscious pur- 
pose so far as can be shown and by sheer but necessary 
interrelations of number and volume, in definite direc- 
tions and definite velocities of motion. In a word, from 
the mechanics of matter, affinities, and motions, all 
forms are built up, in which all properties inhere, and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 203 

from which all function are involved. "A soul is a 
history; and the history the product of the activities of 
a living human organism." 

The different kinds of matter and consequently dif- 
ferent attributes of each kind have, until quite recently 
been supposed upon their atomic difference, to be fixed 
and unchangeable, since their creation and original en- 
dowment. The discoveries of these fixed kinds of matter 
have reached 70 or 80, more or less. Their respective 
weights have been determined, and approximately, their 
volumes. All existence is intellectually seen to be un- 
dergoing change as mode of existing, not enforced upon 
if from without exclusively but involved also in its 
eternal nature. 

I wish it to be very definitely understood what I 
mean by Substance, for it has a very large significance 
in this essay, and I have labored to define it more than 
once, perhaps in much the same terms, viz : that which 
exists in and of itself, without beginning to exist and 
without ceasing to exist. This of course, admits of no 
cause, and by implication denies a creator, because it 
does a creation. Whenever the term matter is used, the 
intention is substance, allowing of no increase or de- 
crease of quantity. But matter is now the center- of 
physical disquisition. But not the quantity of substance 
constituting the universe, except as to the question of 
its finitude or infinitude of extent. And the proposition 
of eternal, uncreated and uncaused existence in an in- 
finite void as presupposed condition. I take it to be a 
self-evident and necessary affirmation. And I mean 
existence in contrast to space or place, as extension per 
se. While Descartes declares that "space or place, and 
corporal substance which is comprised in it are not dif- 
ferent in reality." And Spinoza, teaching the principles 
of Descartes' philosophy, says: "Space and body are the 
same." "Body and extension are the same thing." 
"The nature of bod}^ or matter consists in extension 



204 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

alone." This is matter and extension of which science, 
speculation and practical life, have, as yet taken no 
cognizance. In the allegation of substantive existence, 
I mean to deny that it and its conditions, space and 
time, which are objective as well as subjective verities, 
were ever created or caused to be, or could be caused to 
be. And the allegation of their creation by a person- 
ality is neither a mental necessity, a proven fact, a le- 
gitimate inference from all we know of the universe, or 
helps to make our investigations of nature intelligible. 
And I mean to affirm that eternal existence uncreated 
and uncaused is a mental, because it is a real necessity, 
and whatever becomes, whether called physical or 
psychic, objective or subjective, living or not living, 
organized or unorganized; whether at present, in the 
past, or to come, the mechanics and order of relative 
positions and changes, manifest in the heavens or the 
earth, and whatever is called property or attribute or 
quality, all that is investigated through all the sciences, 
the methods of investigating and the investigators, are 
involved in the nature of substance, its modes of exist- 
ing and the verities of its conditions. And I do not 
mean to assert Pantheism. The universe is of necessity 
and not from the free choice of a personality : an order- 
ed cosmos by its inevitable interrelations in the exacti- 
tudes of space order and its motions in space and time 
order, and its differences in numerical numbers. To find 
the ultimate causal explanation of all things in a con- 
scious personality and a free will is a childish absurdity. 
Consciousness and free will, if there be free will, belong 
as mental qualities or attributes, to a living material 
organism, and not separate from it, to give any realiza- 
ble meaning to these terms. To say a personality may 
be infinite in extent and content, without body or parts, 
omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, have no con- 
ceptive meaning, and these unlimited terms have no 
connection with the limitations of personality as we 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 205 

know and feel it to be. It is mere empty declamation, 
not realizable in thought. By no possibility can the 
averments be felt to be necessary or self-evident or 
proven to be true or reasonable, or to follow as conse- 
quence from data that are necessary or can be proven 
to be true. "Consciousness itself, a personality, is 
essentially finite. The doctrine of a creation, requires 
that there should be a beginning." And affirming a be- 
ginning as a primary postulate, how is an eternal non- 
beginning to be reached? It can only be reached as a 
gratuitous assumption, like as a beginning was laid 
down. Then follows a gratuitous theology and philoso- 
phy. A beginning then a beginner, a creator, other 
than what is begun. For no existence can be self -begun. 
This false doctrine of a beginning originated in the 
infancy of the race and before the attempts to realize 
the meaning of an absolute beginning from nothing, a 
creation as distinguished from an evolution from some- 
thing, and before the necessary and inevitable assump- 
tion of eternal uncreated existence had its birth in con- 
sciousness, which renders the gratuitous assumption of 
a beginning untenable and an absurd chimera. There is 
no consciousness without an organism — a material con- 
struction, that we can affirm. Consciousness seems a 
function of organism, and organism a product of chem- 
istry and physics. But creator must needs be summon- 
ed forth. And there came forth a swarm of creators — 
Gods and Godesses that held the world in thrall for ages. 
But a time came when the assertion of many Gods was 
incompatible with more advanced intelligence. And 
now among those who call themselves the most enlight- 
ened, the number is reduced to one. Monotheism is 
asserted and Polytheism is denied. But if there is no 
beginning of existence as we must affirm, then there is 
no need to affirm a creation, and by consequence a cre- 
ator. Those who affirm existence to be eternal and un- 
created on the ground that it is a necessary and inevita- 



206 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ble affirmation, and by consequence deny a beginning, 
may be met with a denial that existence is a necessary 
affirmation. But cannot rightfully be asked how exist- 
ence can be eternal and uncreated, for that would be an 
impertinence in the face of its necessary affirmation. 
But those who assert a creation of matter and by conse- 
quence a beginning, may be asked consistently with the 
assertion, how matter could have been created. 

Bishop Foster in his book entitled ' ' Creation, ' ' says : 
' 4 The impossibility of conceiving how being can be origi- 
nated must be admitted without hesitation and without 
reservation. The how of a properly creative act is an 
absolute mystery to human intelligence. But does it 
therefore follow that it is impossible?" To create a 
mental glamour upon the pure fiction of a creation and 
creator, identifying the latter with a personality, origi- 
nated in remote ages of ignorance and never was and 
never can be to human intelligence raised above empty 
verbiage. Perverse learning not having laid off its 
swaddle but donned the toga, makes much of ' ' imminent 
creation." "An imminent action is one whose effect 
remains within the subject, while a transitive action 
produces an effect different from the subject. An im- 
minent creation is applied to the operations of a creator 
conceived as in organic connection with the creation, 
and to such a creator himself, as opposed to a transient 
or transcendent creating and creator, from whom the 
creation is conceived as separated. The doctrine of an 
imminent deity implies that either the world is God, or 
the world is in God." Century Dictionary. But to con- 
ceive, to apprehend, to form a distinct and correct no- 
tion of, in the mind, conception, as used in the dictionary 
quotation, is in my view, impossible. Therefore it can 
convey no meaning, is but empty words. Does the im- 
possible conception of how creation takes place, render 
the act impossible? As long as the act cannot be proven, 
and is not a necessary affirmation, because eternal exist- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 207 

enee is a primary and necessary affirmation, the gratu- 
itous assumption of the creation of the material, space 
and time universe, is both useless and absurd, and may 
be pronounced impossible. In religions, as nothing 
about Gods can be verified or disproven, beyond the 
willingness of the individual to accept, each person may 
and does set up such an object to fit the descriptive 
words as his learning and culture and disposition quali- 
fies him to construct, since in the Christian scheme 
faith determines the fact of things, and with prayer, pro- 
cures all things and all events desired by the believer, to 
the removal of mountains, the forgiveness of sins, and 
everlasting life. Every word in the Bible believed to 
have been Avritten or spoken concerning the Hebrew or 
Christian Gods, by the persons orthodoxy supposes, is 
surely true of the Gods. And as faith is the test of all 
Christian doctrine, whether true or not is not funda- 
mental, nor an individual question to be determined, the 
Christian doctrine never was proven to be true, and 
never could have been, nor was it ever set forth under 
that aspect of challenge. The test has been, what does 
the Book, what do the Manuscripts say? The theistic 
religions had their origin centuries before the scientific 
methods of inquiry into the truth of propositions and of 
pretended events had been invented, or the truth or 
falsity of religious story had become important. 

Discussion 49. But the assertion of creation is a 
dogma inherited from the remote past and held by peo- 
ple who have given little or no thought to the question of 
absolute origins or to creation itself. Its sufficient 
answer is, the reminder that the truth that takes prece- 
dence of all other is neither creation nor creator, is not 
historical, but necessary and self-evident, — there is ex- 
istence eternal and uncreated. The rejoinder would prob- 
ably be, "yes, that is the creator." "The universe of 
matter and motion is so magnificent and wonderful, and 
their interrelated arrangements show so much design and 



208 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

purpose, that it must have had a beginning and a de- 
signer. " "Therefore a creator." But if the universe 
cannot be eternal and uncreated and self -ongoing and 
evolving all out of itself, changes, forms, functions, at- 
tributes and properties, the same mode of reasoning must 
apply to its creator. For how can its creator be eternal 
and uncreated who by inevitable presumption, must sur- 
pass the universe in all that makes it needful for the uni- 
verse to have a beginning and a creator and designer by 
at least the necessary power and intelligence to have cre- 
ated the universe from non-existence and bestowed upon 
it all it manifests. But who can fail to see that the aver- 
ment of a creation of the universe and the beginning of 
its creator, cannot bring into consciousness a pictured 
personality equal to the creative agency that did or could 
have done it, nor how it could have been done; or the 
feeling that the averment is necessary, in view of the 
necessary affirmation of existence eternal and uncreated, 
which makes creation untenable and needless. We cannot 
reason in favor of the creation of matter, ' ' for what can 
we reason but from what we know?" The averment is 
without content of idea, and without necessity for itself. 
Its parentage is, ' ' The universe cannot be eternal. ' ' But 
the chief if not the only ground for the averment of a 
creation of the universe in Christendom is, that the cre- 
ator himself has made verbal declaration of it, or has 
inspired its announcement. But this averment is so 
puerile in point of view of its improbability as an his- 
torical fact, and the impossibility of its proof, and its 
unreasonableness from all we know, and the age in which, 
and the people by which, it was averred, and all the 
changes which that ancient writing is known to have un- 
dergone, as to render it impossible to know what its first 
draft was; and the improbability that, if God had in- 
spired men to speak or record the truth about himself, 
or what he had done or what it was his purpose to do, he 
would not have suffered it to be lost, or do it so bungling- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 209 

ly, or suffer it to become entangled or incorporated with 
what he had not inspired them to say as with difficulty 
to be distinguished. So much of the initiative history of 
the Bible, is by confession of many who have thoroughly 
studied its authenticity and integrity, declared to be 
myth and legend and purposed fraud, that no reliance 
<?an be placed on its pretended divine revelation. There 
is no historical corroborative notice of miracles given by 
other peoples with whom the Hebrews had dealings, and 
who must have known of these events if they occurred as 
related. Not even Christ's miracles are noticed by the 
Romans, under whose government the Jews then were, 
and Eoman officers and learned men, Gibbon says, were 
constantly traversing the land. This omission of all no- 
tice, even of resurrections of the dead, is a strong argu- 
ment against their occurrence. 

An argument is constructed by declaring that the 
66 books of the Bible, written during the long period of 
1600 years, by Hebrews and Jews, in which it is claimed 
there is perfect agreement, all expressing the same the- 
istic doctrine and religious sentiment. And this can only 
be accounted for by supposing a divine revealment with 
the appointment of speakers, and a superintending prov- 
idence running through the whole time. This is much too 
strongly stated. It is forgotten that there is such dis- 
crepancy between the Old Testament and the New, as to 
alienate the Jewish race from the New Testament; to 
change the weekly sacred day, and change strict mono- 
theism to at least a quasi polytheism. Besides there are 
self-contradictions in the statements of the two Testa- 
ments : a searcher after such has found 144 which he has 
brought together and published in a little brochure. And 
what remains of the agreement is very naturally and sat- 
isfactorily accounted for in recital of the history of how 
the agreement of this sacred literature came about, found 
in the American Cyclopaedia, first edition, article Bible, 
which I have already quoted for another purpose in my 



210 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

argument for the Eternity of Matter, and of consequence 
the denial of creation and creator. And the discussion 
requires the direct handling of both points. A portion of 
the passages reads as follows : ' ' For a period of not less 
than 1000 years, learned men have been engaged in se- 
lecting, authenticating and arranging in one volume the 
constituent portions of the Bible. And this labor is as 
nothing compared to that bestowed upon the correction 
and establishment of the Scripture text." "Selecting" 
means separation from others with a view to purposed 
and desired results. The selectors had determined be- 
forehand what should be divinely inspired. Then the 
writings that should make up a sacred book that men 
should have faith in and obey on pain of everlasting 
punishment, although it had been divinely revealed, had 
become so indistinguishable, that learned men were 1000 
years in discovering the true from the false. Then God 
was so negligent of results so important to mankind, and 
easily imitated, that, if learned men had not come to the 
human rescue the revelation would have been without 
effect. It is said that the ostrich drops her eggs on the 
ground, and gives no care to their protection. It was not 
the selection of book from books only, but we learn else- 
where that it was of expressions in the same connected 
writing, some were taken and some were left. How was 
it certainly known that what were chosen were divinely 
inspired? By a majority of voices, like a political ques- 
tion. For it had become a party issue. And no party is- 
sues in politics have been fought with more bitterness 
and perhaps more bloodshed than Bible and church ques- 
tions. And the claimed author has remained as if incog- 
nizable of what was going on, or taking no decisive part 
in the matter as no concern of his. 

"Correction and establishment of the Scripture 
text." These learned men selected and determined, cor- 
rected and put together the readings of the divine rev- 
elation and number of the sixty-six books of the Protes- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 211 

tant Bible. The Catholic Bible has more. Catholics ac- 
cuse Protestants of excluding from their Bible a portion 
of divine revelation ; and Protestants accuse Catholics of 
receiving into their Bible what is not the word of God. 
Besides there is a large literature called Apocrypha, 
meaning of hidden or unknown authorship. This might 
as well be said of most of the canonical books of both 
Testaments. There are fourteen of these books attached 
to some copies of the English Old Testament. These are 
said not to be in the present Hebrew Old Testament. But 
with other like writings they are part of the Septuagint, 
a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible made at Alex- 
andria about 275 B. C. Then they had been part of the 
Hebrew sacred writings. The Greek Church now accepts 
without distinction all the Books of the Septuagint. 
Nor has the need or practice of learned men to discrim- 
inate and establish what is divine revelation ceased. I 
read in the "History of the Eevision of the New Testa- 
ment/' which appeared in 1881: "Concerning existing 
defects it may be said briefly, that the variations al- 
ready detected and noted as existing in various manu- 
scripts, versions and editions, amount to about 120,000. 
It is doubtful whether any two editions of the Bible, as 
now published are exactly alike. But of this large num- 
ber of errors it is probable that at least 90,000 are of 
small importance." That leaves 30,000 important errors 
These must be chiefly as to meaning, but what and where 
is the standard by which to determine these to be errors 
of meaning ? Certainties here should be of the most posi- 
tive kind. And if intended for all mankind, as certain 
to the race as visible objects or self-evident propositions, 
this much would be reasonably expected if a divine 
revelation were really given with such awful sanctions 
as everlasting punishment for disobedience. But uncer- 
tainties become more and more apparent when criticism 
presses upon the early history of what is claimed to be a 
divine revelation of a theistic and religious scheme, a be- 



212 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

lief in and obedience to which, is to save men to eternal 
blessedness. 

The New Testament as we have it after being trans- 
lated from a dead language, which is enough for abund- 
ant errors, and passing though several revisions, and be- 
ing compared with most ancient copies known, which are 
riot nearer to the time of Jesus than 350 years, the differ- 
ences noted and counted up are not less than 120,000. 
The determinate reading of the New Testament was fixed 
by the victorious party as against a strong opposition as 
hostile to each other as were those for and against 
slavery, by the use of fraud and violence, even death. 
The Apocrypha of the New Testament, is as large as the 
New Testament consisting of writings most of which 
are claimed to have been written by the same authors as 
claimed to have written the canonical New Testament; 
or by Apostles and others more familiar with some parts 
of the Gospel history, than those who are believed to have 
written the accepted New Testament. The conquering 
party many years after the crucifixion, ruled these out. 
The orthodox doctrines of the Christian church were 
fought into general acceptance by help of the civil pow- 
ers. From and after the conversion of Constantine, 
whose conversion the church historian says was thus ef- 
fected — "As he was hesitating what divinity's aid he 
should invoke for the successful conduct of the war, a 
preternatural vision appeared to him as he was marching 
at the head of his troops; the form of a cross in the 
heavens appeared to him on which were inscribed these 
words: BY THIS CONQUER. On the following night 
Christ appeared to him and gave the pattern of a stand- 
ard which he was to prepare for his soldiers to follow. ' ' 
Success of the battle of Milvian Bridge followed and 
Constantine was a Christian and head of the ailied 
church and the world, falsifying the words of Jesus, 
"My kingdom is not of this world." Constantine pre- 
sided at the Oecumenical council held at Nicaea 325 A. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 213 

D., which was chiefly to determine the relation between 
the Father and the Son raised by Arius. The doctrine 
that had come into vogue without exciting much dis- 
cussion was that the Son was con-substantial and co-eter- 
nal with the Father. Arius was a presbyter in the church 
at Alexandria in Egypt. If the Son was begotten by the 
Father, Arius argued that the Father was older than the 
Son, and there must have been a time when the Son was 
not. The council decided against Arius, and against the 
logic of common sense upon the premise given, viz: the 
Father begot the Son. The doctrine of the Trinity has 
not ceased to divide Christian consciousness from the day 
that Arius raised the question to this. All the essential 
theistic and religious doctrines of the Christian Church 
have been opposed to the extent of disfellowship and dis- 
communion. There never has been and never can be uni- 
versal agreement in one and the same theistic and relig- 
ious conviction. Because mankind can never be subjected 
to one and the same kind and measure of sense experi- 
ence and intellectual culture. Circumstances, inclination 
and capacity forbid it. Hence the folly of preaching the 
universal acceptance of the Christian religion. The uni- 
versal church is now so far separated into hostile sections 
that intermarriages seldom occur between their mem- 
bers; nor do they often meet in social intercourse, and 
never in Christian fellowship. And missionaries are em- 
ployed to convert the members of one party to the views 
of another party, although all profess to ground on the 
theism presented in the Bible. Christianity has been 
propagated by violence and bloodshed. Nevertheless it 
has done an incalculable amount of good. So has Mo- 
hammedanism, Polytheism and Fetichism. Not because 
the theistic doctrine of any one of the four isms is ob- 
jectively true, but because the devotees of each believe 
they are true. It may be well to call to mind a deed of 
death that Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt, A. 
D. 415, is charged with. Hypatia, a Neoplatonic phil- 



214 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

osopher of Alexandria, was famed for her beauty and her 
learning, professor of mathematics in the renowned sci- 
entific and philosophic school at the Museum. She was 
not a Christian. But so far as I have read, taking no 
active part against Christianity further than her intelli- 
gence, philosophy and general moral character were 
against it. Cyril, it is said, instigated a mob of his 
fanatical monks to attack her as she was riding in her 
chariot, dragged her into a church, stripped her naked, 
drove her into the street, tore her flesh from her body and 
threw her mangled remains into the flames. It is but jus- 
tice to say that the church historian says that the Chris- 
tians of the city condemned the deed. But at that time 
and in view of other deeds committed by the church 
against opposers, it is perhaps as likely to be on the com- 
mon ground of humanity as a felt wrong against Chris- 
tianity. For that must be propagated to save men 's souls 
from hell, and to destroy influential opposers may be 
painful but justifiable. So thought Calvin in burning 
Servetus, and all who killed those accused of witchcraft, 
under the direct command — "Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live." 

Christianity is Judaistic — Hellenistic. But its 
tritheism is an inheritance from Polytheism; and its 
worship of the "Mother of God," and adoration of the 
pictures of saints drawn from sentimental imagination, 
and its miracles, the achievements of osseous relicts of 
saints, or a bit of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, 
or a nail by which he was suspended on the cross, are 
inheritances from Fetichism. The origins of Christianity 
are set forth by Loisy, the recusant Catholic priest, and 
of consequence the ex-communicant from the Catholic 
church, now professor of the history of religions in the 
College de France. In his opening lecture on the first 
Monday of May last, he says: "The analysis and syn- 
thesis of all the religious factors, which in the Roman 
Empire led up to the forming of the religious mentality 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 215 

and body of doctrine and institutions whence our West- 
ern world drew its nourishment up to the dawn of sci- 
ence in modern times, primitive Semitic religions. Egyp- 
tian, Assyro-Chaldaic, Israel's religion, Judaism, Mazde- 
ism, Greek, Greek religions, philosophy, Syrian and 
Phrygian, Gnosticism, evolutionary and dual — all helped 
to religious synoretism in the Roman Empire and in re- 
bounding to the formation of the Christian religion in 
the Roman Empire." Loisy also made his own a declara- 
tion of Jean Reville's, that it is in the human soul that 
Ave must seek the ultimate and sound explanation of re- 
ligious phenomena; in the imagination; in the heart; in 
reason ; in conscience ; in instinct ; in the passions. 

No one but a fanatic, no one who has studied the 
negative as well as the affirmative of the proposition, 
' ' The Bible is the Word of God, ' ' will seriously attempt 
to prove the affirmation. Religions that found on the 
claim of a divine revelation, and antagonize one another, 
mutually defeat the claim of each other. Nor will he 
point to the agreement between the 66 books of the 
Protestant Bible as proof of a divine thread running 
through and connecting them all upon one subject-mat- 
ter, unless ignorantly or purposely missing the thread 
as a human device realized after centuries of labor to 
produce this result. 

Try to conceive a creation. Now there is no universe 
of worlds or change, or truths of space or time, no axio- 
matic truths; the whole of a ciuantity is greater than a 
part ; the straight line is the shortest between two points, 
are not truths. Presto. Now the universe of worlds and 
atoms come into existence from nothing and from no- 
where. Space and time come into being and the mathe- 
matical axioms involved in them. And all this by the 
fiat of a personality, manlike, with pre-purpose and de- 
vised plan to have all things as they are and ever shall 
be, and not otherwise, although they might have been 
quite otherwise. Not every wide-spread multitudinous 



216 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and age-long embraced errors have been formally and 
really refuted. But independent thinkers who dare to 
call in question the dogmas of a remote past and demand 
proofs for their creeds and philosophies, outgrow what 
they have before accepted and perhaps advocated on 
popular grounds. What has become of the world of 
fairies, and the Gods and religions of ancient Egypt y 
Assyria and Babylonia, Greece and Rome, and their 
sacred literatures? They have been simply left in the 
progress of intelligence. It is likely that the theology of 
three thousand years hence, if there should be any, will 
be as remote in its fundamentals and features from what 
it is to-day, as that of to-day is from that of three thous- 
and years ago. The advocacy of the creation of matter 
is rarely attempted directly, for it is a dogma that ad- 
mits of no direct or analogical reasoning. It is simply a 
part of a theological creed. But its acceptance or denial 
changes the consequential view of all else. The only 
reasons for averring a creation of the universe worthy of 
consideration in this advanced age, having outgrown all 
ipse dixit authority respecting it, is verification, or sci- 
entific analogies, or critical historical evidence that is 
demanded and is convincing. And not the story of a 
voice from a mountain top putting under moral and 
formal obligation a world of intelligences; or fire from 
heaven that consumes a sacrifice and the water with 
which it is drenched, and the stones that composed the 
alter; a rod turned to a serpent that eats up other rods 
turned to serpents; the water of a great river instantly 
turned to blood; a w T hole country now filled with frogs, 
now with lice, now with swarms of flies ; all the domestic 
animals of a whole people killed at once with murrain; 
the whole land of a country covered so thick with locusts 
that the land could not be seen; darkness enveloping a 
country, but not the darkness of night, but produced in 
daytime; the first born of a nation of people killed in 
one and the same night. All these calamities overtake a 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 217 

nation of people except a group of foreigners that occu- 
py a small portion of the country who were immune from 
these disasters by the cause of them. But not a word of 
historical record has this smitten people or neighboring 
peoples preserved of this national calamity for the in- 
struction of their posterity and the wonder of all coming 
ages, although they did record abundantly their domes- 
tic usages and foreign relations. The record issues only 
from the group of foreigners who make themselves the 
amazing beneficiaries of the people previous to these 
stupendous calamities; who alone have made record that 
they were in Egypt, how they got there , and how they 
got away. The Egyptians themselves apparently were 
oblivious of the Hebrew people ever occupying Egypt 
either as its rulers or its slaves. Of the many dynasties 
they have recorded, they say nothing of a Hebrew 
dynasty. And in as much as the whole tale is miraculous 
and out of the order of historical events, we may with- 
out violence to historical credibility declare the whole 
narrative to be unworthy of credence. The only reasons 
for declaring the creation of matter worthy of consid- 
eration are, that creation is the primal and necessary 
postulate; or that matter itself bears unmistakable and 
universal marks of having begun to exist. Neither of 
these reasons could be maintained if alleged, and no one 
would make the allegation who had not already commit- 
ted himself to the Bible allegation of it, and resting on 
that allegation, notwithstanding the impossibility of 
there ever being any historical evidence of it, although 
an historical event ; neither any necessary or ontological 
or scientific data from which logical reasoning would is- 
sue in the conclusion of creation; and notwithstanding 
the necessary primal postulate of eternal and uncreated 
existence which by implication is a denial of creation. And 
in consideration that the universe constitutes all exist- 
ence of which we know anything, or can conceive, or need 
to affirm, and the impossibility of intelligently affirming 



218 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

the absolute creation of the universe, or even a particle 
of matter. To say the creator could create matter and 
the worlds, and he is the author of the declaration of cre- 
ation in the Bible, is only human ipse dixit, and has no 
scientific or verifiable validity, and is unworthy of seri- 
ous consideration for one who is seeking truth for truth 's 
sake. That the universe could not exist without having 
been created is often asserted. But this is to be noted > 
that creation is here first gratuitously assumed and then 
given as the reason for its assertion. The same reasoning 
is applicable to the creator of the universe, and would 
require the creation of the creator, and so on creation of 
creators regressively ad infinitum. It may be assumed 
without a possible demonstration to the contrary or even 
a reasonable showing, that any statement coming through 
human testimony or coming to human consciousness, has 
not a supernatural source. We ask why the universe (we 
do not say in its present forms and functioning or any 
that can be definitely imagined) cannot be the eternal 
and uncreated existence that is the primal and neces- 
sary assumption ? Not first of course in the order of our 
knowledge, but which takes its place as absolutely first 
in an ontological attempt and a philosophical resultant 
of all scientific reality, and which assumes precedence of 
a cosmology and a psychology, and I would say a ration- 
al theology, were there such a self -contradictory reality. 
Why, we ask, cannot the substantive universe be self-ex- 
isting, self -ordered and determined in its interrelations 
of positions and motions as it must be because of the 
universal and inevitable intrinsic orders of space and 
time, and. hold and exercise within and by itself all pow- 
er of every kind, and bring forth its phenomenal prod- 
ucts in mechanical, i. e., mathematical order from physics 
to psychics, from corpuscles to Sirius and Canopus, with- 
out intelligent purpose or pre-devised plan, by its sheer 
eternal nature, in its static and moving mechanics? Or 
as Haeckel savs, the laws of substance? Motion cannot 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 219 

be separated from matter as an entity in its own behalf; 
it is the way matter exists, a persistent and universal at- 
tribute or property. Hence, the "Indestructibility of 
Matter, and the Conservation of Energy," is the gener- 
alized formula of physics. There seems to be some ratio 
between the infinitesimally small material masses and 
their almost infinite velocity, and the immense aggre- 
gates of matter and their relatively small velocity, as the 
greater suns. Gravitational attraction has swept together 
the masses of the stars and is still sweeping the regions of 
space and adding accumulations of matter to suns and 
planets. Prof. Proctor in his "Other Worlds than Ours" 
in the chapter on "Meteors and Comets" says: "There 
are millions of very eccentric orbital systems of meteors 
revolving round the sun, and our earth encounters no 
less than fifty-six well determined systems in her annual 
progress round the sun. Some of the individual meteors 
come within her attraction and fall upon her surface. 
And so numerous are these bodies, that it has been cal- 
culated that the earth in passing through space equal to 
her own dimensions would encounter no less than 50,000 
of them. These meteoric bodies come from interplanetary 
spaces, and form a most important portion of the solar 
system. The orbit of none of these systems has as yet 
been definitely determined. They are very eccentric, and 
the aphelion point of the August ring lies nearly twice 
as far from us as the orbit of Neptune. And this planet 
is said to be 2,800,000,000 miles from the Sun, 37,000 
miles in diameter, and its period of revolution about the 
sun 16-4 years. It has been found that the November 
ring of meteors travels around the sun in thirty-three 
and a quarter years, and its aphelion lies far beyond the 
path of Uranus. The August and November systems are 
the only ones whose periods have been determined to any 
satisfaction. In the November meteor system there is a 
portion called, ' ' The gem of the meteor ring. " It is said 
to be not less than 1,000,000,000 miles in length. Its 



220 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

thickness 100,000 miles and its width 1,000,000 miles, and 
the number of meteors in this gem cluster not less than 
one hundred thousand millions, and their estimated 
weight not less than 28,000 tons. And the weight of 
meteoric matter circulating around the sun must be esti- 
mated by billions of tons. As meteors fall upon the earth 
it must be inferred that they fall upon the other planets, 
their satellites and the asteroids. And likely minute par- 
ticles of matter are streaming into these meteoric rings 
to make good the loss of what falls from them and lights 
upon the sun and his retinue of worlds. ' ' Then we must 
infer that space is filled with matter, also these rings of 
meteors are growing less in their members and in time 
reach their limits. But the ostensible sources of the sun's 
supply of light and heat are the raining down upon his 
surface meteoric matter, and its contraction upon itself 
from loss of heat. And very lately the conjecture that 
radium may serve to this end. It might be a question how 
the sun could lose its internal heat. For it can hardly be 
supposed that the internal heat can be greater than its 
surface heat, and heat motion dissipates in the direction 
of less heat and not in the direction of greater. This 
would violate the principle of motion in the direction of 
least resistance. Prof. Ball, in his article "Nebular The- 
ory" in Encyclopaedia Britannica says the sun is con- 
tracting so that its diameter diminishes four miles in a 
century. 

Discussion 50. In view of meteoric matter ceasing to 
fall upon the sun, the consequence to the earth might be 
disastrous. Prof. Proctor argues in this way : There are 
very great but unknown numbers of meteoric rings cir- 
cling round the sun, and these rings must interest each 
others orbits near the sun, and their meteors colliding 
come almost to rest, and so fall into the sun. These 
bodies of matter coming from great distances their 
velocities and consequently their striking force must be 
very great and the evolution of light and heat very great. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 221 

This is a persistent supply to the sun. Should the quan- 
tity of loose matter in space within the sun's attractive 
power be lessened and this luminary cease to radiate his 
wonted supply of heat and light, all earthly force and all 
earth's life might cease. The meteoric matter owes its 
great velocity and therefore its great striking power and 
the evolution of great quantities of heat and light to the 
fact of coming from immense distances in space. So 
space itself becomes a prime factor in the evolution of 
life and intelligence. All life on the earth may depend 
upon these rings and matter, circling round the sun and 
its members plunging into it. And this upon the fact of 
space distance. All is dependent on matter and motion 
which must be pre-supposed in supposing or witnessing 
any phenomenon animate or inanimate. And matter in 
motion presupposes space and time. How fallacious to 
hold that these validities have no objectivity in them- 
selves, since they bear the outward as clearly as the in- 
ward character of necessity. Mechanics, the interrela- 
tions of matter in positions and movements rule every- 
where and everything, and these validities are implied 
everywhere and always. Through the affections of mat- 
ter expressed universally in gravitation, discriminate^ 
as chemical and other forces, are brought about by com- 
binations, and these by action and reaction of their con- 
stituents upon one another evolve properties and mani- 
fest results not in their constituents. How in conflict with 
obvious facts, is the assertion that nothing can be gotten 
out of a thing that is not put into it in one or more of the 
parts composing it. The whole domain of chemistry and 
biology contradicts the assertion. Action and reaction 
are opposite and equal. The discriminating affections or 
aptitudes of atomic differences of matter to combine or 
associate together, has an equal and opposite tendency 
to dissociate, sometimes under very slight provocation, 
and almost every combination under the constraining 



222 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

circumstance of internal heat motions, which dissolves 
almost all ties that unite differences. 

All material and physical and every other difference 
(which indeed at bottom are all material) may be viewed 
as effected by the eternal motions and consequently shift- 
ing positions of the infinite numbers of a unitary sub- 
stance. "The primal being, according to Anaximander, 
(610 B. C.) is unquestionably a unity," says G. H. Lew- 
es, in his History of Philosophy. "It is one, yet all." 
And this is the last word of physical science. Matter in 
its extremest analysis yet reached, is numerical and not 
otherwise differentiated. A definite number of what is 
all alike, so and so mechanically constructed, and each 
one and the group so and so in motion, may constitute 
this or that differentiated atom; and these unlike atoms 
so and so chemically combined in definite numbers and 
each in definite motions, under such and such external 
conditions, result in all animate and inanimate differ- 
ences. Creation, if it must be used in any intelligible 
meaning, and not the empty verbality of bringing into 
existence something from nothing, but something from 
something, let it be the new forms, potencies and prop- 
erties consequential from composition and decomposi- 
tion. The matter of our bodies is as ancient as the sun, 
and once probably constituted a part of the sun, but our 
minds are only of yesterday. The knowledge of how a 
thing could be done with thing doing it, and the doer of 
it, given, is proof that it is done. But the how the ma- 
terial universe could be created from non-existence and 
put into related positions and motions from stellar mass- 
es to infinitesimal corpuscles by a personal creator, or 
that it was created, or the creator of it is known, are 
neither given, nor can be mentally pictured or of neces- 
sity affirmed. Nor because the universe is given to con- 
scious experience, does there arise therefrom the implica- 
tion that it was created or began to exist; since we are 
under the necessity to postulate neither creation nor be- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 223 

ginning, but eternal uncreated existence. And the ma- 
terial space and time and ongoing universe is compre- 
hensive of all existence that we can think of, or intelli- 
gently talk about, or there is place for. We must not sup- 
pose that words used for existence must of necessity or 
they do actually stand for, and guarantee, real objective 
existence, although so used for centuries and acquiesced 
in by the great majority of the people. To transcend the 
universe in thought is impossible. Therefore to intelli- 
gently and really posit its creation, its creator, or begin- 
ning, is impossible, and to do so is mere empty verbiage. 
An imminent creation which confuses or identifies the 
universe with its creator, is a,s unthinkable and no more 
possible or needful, or a necessary averment, than is a 
transcendent creation which separates creator from the 
universe created. 

So inveterate is the allegation of creation of the uni- 
verse from custom and habit, initiated as it was for 
Christendom by a people without any critical knowledge 
of the universe as to its extent or content, nor of the 
denotation of the world, if creation is a literal translation 
of it, for we have no possible realization of creation or 
creator of the universe, although their universe was lit- 
tle more than a flat earth of a few miles in extent; and 
some very learned persons still believe and teach the 
Hebrew creation. But when the learned attempt to set 
forth the creation in a conceivable manner, their effort 
either virtually denies creation or results in something 
as inconceivable, and at most is a mere ipse dixit. But it 
is of as much authority as the Hebrew cosmogony, which 
ipse dixit is put forth to sustain it. Thus, Sir W. Ham- 
ilton, Metaphysics, Lecture XL, says: "The quantum of 
existence which is realized in any object, — that we can- 
not represent to ourselves, either as increased, without 
abstraction from other bodies or as diminished, without 
addition to them, in short, we are unable to construe it 
in thought, that there can be an atom absolutely added 



224 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

to, or an atom absolutely taken away from, existence in 
general. Make the experiment. Form to yourselves a 
notion of the universe; now can you conceive that the 
quantum of existence, of which the universe is the sun, 
is either amplified or diminished? You can conceive the 
creation of a world as lightly as you conceive the crea- 
tion of an atom. But what is creation? It is not the 
springing of nothing into something. Far from it;— it 
is conceived, and is by us conceivable, merely as the evo- 
lution of a new form of existence, by the fiat of the 
Deity. Let us suppose the very crisis of creation. Can 
we realize it to ourselves, in thought, that, the moment 
after the universe came into manifested being, there was 
a larger complement of existence in the universe and its 
author together, than there was the moment before in 
the Deity himself alone? What I have now said of our 
conception of creation, holds true of our conception of 
annihilation. We can conceive no real annihilation, — no 
absolute sinking of something into nothing. All that 
there is now actually of existence in the universe we con- 
ceive as having virtually existed, prior to creation, in the 
Creator." Then our belief cannot consistently exceed 
our capacity and power to conceive, is a fair and logical 
inference from the above quotation. And as a real crea- 
tion of the material universe is inconceivable, and its 
evolution from the Deity, either by so much the less of 
Deity, which would seem to be a transmutation, or his 
continuance undiminshed and unchanged, which might 
be Pantheism. Either alternative is equally inconceiva- 
ble, therefore unworthy of belief. Or another exposition 
of the above quotation. God is diminished by the com- 
plement of existence that makes up the material space 
and time universe, and there was no actual, bona-fide 
creation at all. But its meaning is and ever has been and 
was so understood by the Hebrews, to signify a separa- 
tion of their Jehovah from the world. Perhaps by fission, 
this comports with the indignity and absurdity of the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 225 

quotation; or a devolution, a metamorphosis, or "evolu- 
tion" of the Deity into materiality, then divide into suns 
and planets, asteroids, comets and meteoric portions, 
from great cauopus equaling a million of our suns, down 
to the small dust of the balance. And then a farther de- 
velopment of the materialized Deity into the Upas, Ap- 
ple and Orange tree, the Cobra-de-eapello, the Lion and 
the Lamb, Torquemada and Jesus. Or the Deity and the 
material universe are one and not two, have ever been 
one and inseparable, and Pantheism or Panlogism 
emerges, whichever one chooses. A real creation is de- 
nied. The imminence of Deity is a consubstantialism. 
And. transcendent creator of the universe is impossible, 
for no existence can be conceived out of or beyond space 
-and time relations, or their cause; that is, these verities 
are pre-supposed in supposing any existence whatever. 
"Imminence," says J. D. Morrell, "implies the unity of 
the intelligent principle in creation in the creating it- 
self, and of course includes in it every genuine form of 
Pantheism." Here, the "intelligent principle" seems not 
to be personalized. And taken to mean the necessary 
space and time interrelations of existence and its mo- 
tions, which are laws or fixed and definite methods by 
which all becomings and changes take place, and these 
forms and their functions being new presentations, are 
•called creations in a secondary sense, expresses my own 
conviction. But I should have no use for the term Pan- 
theism. Human and all animal intelligence follows, 
copies, or imitates nature's laws or ways in productive 
acts and does not institute them. Intelligence has to 
seek out how to accomplish its purposes, has to discover 
what the unintelligent but necessarily intelligible laws 
of material procedure, dictates in order to become an in- 
telligent producer. This indicates that it is not an or- 
clainer of ways and means. Intelligence is functioned 
and individualized in and by a definite material con- 
struction or organism without the purposive element of a 



226 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

final cause in the constructing. There is no finality which 
dooms the universe. As it had no architect or beginning, 
it can have no annihilator or termination. Intelligence 
is one of its local issues, not its creator or constructor. 
Its highest achievements find the laws by which its cal- 
culations are conducted and purposes realized. Do you 
say: yes, finds them in itself. True, and because they 
are involved in the not-self, of which the self is the off- 
spring with the added quality of consciousness. Con- 
sciousness is the meaning and limitation of the self. 
There is not a universal intelligence, for intelligence is 
numerical and individual. But there is the universal in- 
telligible, since all things — all differences, are interre- 
lated, proximately or remotely. The organism function- 
ates the mind or consciousness, as the mechanics of the 
watch copies time-keeping, functionated by the motions 
of the stars. To the capacity of mind nature mirrors or 
reveals herself, or the intelligible realizes itself in intel- 
ligence. There is good reason to deny what is not self- 
evident, or not of necessity affirmable, or not of scientific 
certitude, or no credible witness can testify to of his 
own knowledge. In the construction of the human or- 
ganism Avhich functionates life, sensation and intelli- 
gence, and any other animal or vegital organism, and in 
space, there is posited the material universe, everywhere 
in motions and change of forms, and the production and 
cessation of properties and qualities, there is no trans- 
cendent or imminent creator or prepurposive designer 
or artizan intelligently working to realize a final-cause 
plan, that can be established by any of the above men- 
tioned ways of proof. This view is not in harmony with 
the doctrine of Anaxagoras, who is declared by Dio- 
genes Laertius to have said: "All things were mixed up 
together: then mind came and arranged them all in dis- 
tinct order.*' And the prevailing opinion of Christendom 
is that the arrangement of all things into one universal 
system, was effected by mind, or intelligence like, and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 227 

working as, the human (for we have no other test of 
mind) granting an absolute creation from non-existence, 
and the elementary state to be a chaos, which positions 
are gratuitously taken. 

The necessary affirmation of existence eternal and 
uncreated, leaves its identification and realization to be 
fixed in the substantive space and time universe, of 
which we know something, and a part of which we are, 
and other than, and beyond which, we know no existence, 
and have no evidence that we have any capacity for 
knowing. And the universe is not, and it gives no evi- 
dence that it ever was, or could be chaos. It has in itself 
as conditions of existing, eternal elements of order, and 
can no more be out of order than it can exist and be in 
motions out of space and out of time. And intelligence 
has no power to absolve into absolute disorder or put 
into no order. Order may be so intricate and involved 
as to defy the ability of any intelligence, as yet to com- 
pass and calculate. But the axiom "the universe is in 
space and time order" negatives any entanglement as 
being in absolute no order, or not in space and time or- 
der. It is the necessary order of the universe that leaves 
no ground for the averment of an orderer distinct from 
and other than the eternal order of the universe itself. 
What the human organism witnesses to in its own exem- 
plification is that itself, the organism, in its complex of 
material mechanics, evolves or produces, through the con- 
vergence of many diverse physical contributions, and an 
aiding environment, the attributes, properties, or quali- 
ties of life, sensation, and intelligence. And it does not 
witness to a transcendent or imminent conscious plan- 
ning and working agency not of the organism; or itself 
being other than the organism; or to particularize other 
than the consciousness functionated by the organism; or 
that consciousness or the self is not effectively involved 
in the working mechanics of the organism. That it is so. 
involved and so produced, seems as evident as that elec- 



228 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tricity is produced by the working mechanics of the dy- 
namo. But how or why the one should be produced by 
its evident cause is as much an unsolved problem as the 
other. And it is no more a forced conjecture that one is 
the product of a Deus ex ynachina, than the other. And 
the human organism seems as well adapted to realize in 
the concrete and to individualize conscious intelligence 
from the universal and necessary abstract intelligible, as 
the dynamo to realize and localize the general perhaps 
universal something called electricity. If our intelli- 
gence extended to minutest details of the material chem- 
ico-mechanics of our bodies, the nature of these me- 
chanics and the nature of matter, we might as plainly see 
that life and intelligence arise or are involved therein, as 
knowing the form of an incline and its passive attitude 
and the form and motility of water, the latter must flow 
down the former. 

Whut can be said against matter being eternal and 
uncreated, and unevolved from a Deity, and in motion 
as mode of existing and its nature definitely to combine 
and dissolve and recombine, which would of course be 
impossible without motion, and in, under and by its con- 
ditions space and time, without which matter could not 
exist nor be in motions, and from its nature and circum- 
stance all phenomena whatsoever arise as they seem to? 
Nothing but the ipse dixit "Impossible." 

Discussion 51. To define and determine the extent 
of and grounds warranting the entertainment of belief, 
we shall quote Parson's exposition of the Creed, not fully 
or continuously, but interruptedly, yet sufficiently to 
gather his method of procedure and reasoning, which 
are as clear and logical as anything of the kind I have 
met with, to see if on his exposition of belief, we have 
any warrantable grounds in testimony to believe a cre- 
tion or creator of the universe; and to point out some 
deficiency in his enumerated conditions to warrant be- 
lief in what he advocates, but extending no farther than 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 229 

the creation of the universe and its creator. 

" Belief is defined to be an assent to that which is 
credible as credible. This assent is primarily of the 
understanding. The term credible excludes all self-evi- 
dent truths (whether known directly by our reason or 
our senses) and matters capable of scientific proof either 
from their cause or their effect; for such things are 
called self-evident, or scientific, not credible. And on 
the other hand there are matters which though appar- 
ently true, still leave room for doubt, and these are 
called probable. But where a thing is propounded to 
us as neither self-evident nor evident to our senses, nor 
scientifically certain, and yet raised above probability, 
not by a manifestation, but by attestation of the truth, 
this is said to be credible and assent to this is belief. 
Credibility of objects differs according to the authority 
of the testimony on which it depends ; and this again on 
the authority of the testifier, and his authority on his 
knowledge and his goodness (as this is an equivocal 
term, we would rather say integrity or honesty). Every 
one who believeth any thing doth assent unto it as to 
that which is credible, and therefore all belief whatso- 
ever is such a kind of assent. He which sees an action 
done knows it to be done, the person to whom he relates 
it believes it ; in which case that which is credible is the 
object of belief in one, of evident knowledge in the other. 
To make the definition of belief full we have added to 
the thing believed that whereby it is properly believed, 
(that is, the knowledge of the testifier). 

For the explication of the same, some further ob- 
servations will be necessary. For if that which we be- 
lieve be something which is credible, and the notion under 
which we believe be the credibility of it, then must we 
first declare what it is to be credible, and in what cred- 
ibility doth consist, before we can understand what is 
the nature of belief. Now that is properly credible 
which is not apparent of itself, nor certainly to be col- 



230 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

lected either antecedently by its cause or reversely by its 
effect. For those things which are apparent of them- 
selves are either so in respect of our sense or our under- 
standing', which are not termed credible, because evident- 
ly true. The propositions in mathematics and conclus- 
ions in other sciences are not said to be credible, but 
scientilical, and the comprehension of is not faith but 
science. 

Besides some things there are which, though not 
evident of themselves, nor of necessary connection to 
their causes or effects, but yet appear to most to be true, 
but still leaves a possibility of falsehood with it, and 
therefore doth but incline to an assent. In which case 
whatever depends upon real arguments is not called 
credible but probable, and an assent to such a truth is 
not properly faith but opinion. 

But when any thing propounded to us is neither 
apparent to our sense nor evident to our understanding 
in and of itself, neither certainly to be collected from 
any clear and necessary connection with the cause from 
which it proceedeth or the effects which it naturally 
produceth, nor is taken up upon any real arguments or 
reference to other acknowledged truths, and yet to us 
appeareth to be true, not by a manifestation but attesta- 
tion of the truth, and so moveth us to assent not of itself, 
but by virtue of the testimony given to it ; this is said 
properly to be credible; and an assent unto this upon 
such credibility is in the proper notion, faith or belief. 

We have thus defined and illustrated the nature of 
faith in general, so far as it agreeth to all kinds of belief, 
whatsoever. And being we have placed the formality 
of the object of all belief in credibility, it will clearly 
follow that diversity of credibility in the object will 
proportionately cause a distinction of assent in the 
understanding, and consequently a several kind of faith, 
wmich we have supposed to be nothing else but such an 
assent. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 231 

Now the credibility of objects by which they appear 
fit to be believed, depends upon the authority of the 
testimony on which it is founded. For we have no other 
ground for matters of mere belief than the testimony on 
which we believe. It is therefore necessary to consider 
in what the authority consisteth. The strength and 
validity of every testimony depends upon the authority 
of the testifier ; and his authority is founded upon his 
ability and integrity; his ability in the knowledge of 
^hat which he delivereth and assert eth, his integrity in 
delivering and asserting according to his knowledge. 
He may deceive us by being ignorant of the truth. He 
may think that to be true which is false, and so deceive 
himself and us; he may be dishonest and unfaithful, 
and himself be not deceived: he may deceive us. But 
whoever is so able as certainly to know the truth of that 
which he delivereth, and so faithful as to deliver noth- 
ing but what and as he knoweth, he, as he is not de- 
ceived, deceiveth no man. And thus the authority of 
every testifier or relater is grounded upon his ability and 
integrity. 

There is a double testimony ; the testimony of man 
to man, and the testimony of God to man. Human faith 
is an assent unto anything credible merely upon the 
testimony of man. Seeing then our belief relies upon 
the ability and integrity of the relater, and being the 
knowledge of all men is imperfect, and the hearts of all 
men are deceitful, and so their integrity to be suspected, 
there can be no infallible ground of human faith. Divine 
faith is an assent unto something as credible upon the 
testimony of God. ' ' 

I have now made sufficient continuous quotation to 
serve my present purpose. 

Our author has paid no regard to the principle of 
antecedent probability or improbability of the events or 
things the personalities and characters and powers there- 
of, for which he solicits universal belief, on the gTound 



232 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

of the credibility or worthiness of belief made so 
wholly bjr the credibility of the testifiers. There can be 
no competency in the testifiers or their testimony to ren- 
der credible events which confessedly have never occur- 
red but once, and the uniformity of the laws of nature 
have either been violated or transcended if they have 
occurred once, against which the antecedent improba- 
bility is as infinity to one. The credibility of a decla- 
ration depends upon the general intelligence of the 
narrator, as well as upon his particular information 
touching its subject matter, and upon the general intel- 
ligence and freedom from bias of those receiving the 
testimony. Persons of little general intelligence believe 
many propositions that large general intelligence would 
reject as against any mere verbal testimony. While 
large general intelligence facilitates belief in some prop- 
ositions which general ignorance would reject. Darwin- 
ian organic evolution is an instance. "Notions of the 
beginning and end of the world entertained by our 
forefathers are no longer credible/' Huxley. "Asserta- 
tions for which there is abundant positive evidence are 
often disbelieved, on account of what is called their 
improbability or impossibility. The positive evidence 
produced in support of an assertion which is neverthe- 
less rejected on the score of impossibility or improba- 
bility, is never such as amounts to full proof. It is 
always grounded upon some approximate generalization. 
The fact may have been asserted by a hundred witnesses ; 
but there are many exceptions to the universality of the 
generalization that a hundred witnesses affirm to be 
true. We may seem to ourselves to have actually seen 
the fact; but that we really see what we think we see, 
is by no means an universal truth. The evidence then 
in the affirmative, being never more than an approximate 
generalization, all will depend upon what the evidence 
in the negative is. If the approximate generalization 
leading to the affirmative are, when added together, less 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 233 

strong, or in other words, further removed from uni- 
versality, than the approximate generalizations which 
support the negative side of the question, the proposition 
is said to be improbable, and is to be disbelieved pro- 
visionally. If, however, an alleged fact be in contradic- 
tion, not to any number of approximate generalizations, 
but* to a completed generalization, grounded upon a rig- 
orous induction, it is said to be impossible, and to be 
disbelieved totally. This is the logical canon of the 
Grounds of Disbelief." Mitt's Logic, Chap. XXV. Book 
III. 

Apply this test (and it is pertinent to the denial of 
the credibility of the allegation of any objective facts 
not verifiable by experimentation) to the alleged facts 
of the Apostles Creed: "Conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the Virgin Mary," with a completed generali- 
zation against their truth in the negative. This fulfills 
the condition for total disbelief of the quotation from the 
Apostle's Creed, so called. That is, the completed gen- 
eralization grounded on a rigorous induction means that 
no person of all that have been begotten, or have been 
born, have been begotten by the Holy Ghost, or have 
been born of a human virgin. And consequently no tes- 
tifier or testimony can render the quoted words of the 
Creed credible. It may be objected that the generaliza- 
tion or induction is not complete by the one exception 
alleged, therefore the grounds for the total denial of 
credibility, are not fulfilled. This is a mere quibble. 
There is no exception until a case is proven, and this 
rests upon its asserters with all that have been begotten 
by other agents than the Holy Ghost, and of all that 
have been born, there is no parthenogenetic human, or 
if you will, divinely theistic, begetter. With all this 
positive evidence up to the present time to the negation 
of one exception, the competency and veracity of any 
testifiers or testimony to establish one instance of beget- 
ting by the Holy Ghost, or one instance of uterine birth 



234 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

from a human virgin, are incredible. The rejoinder 
would probably be, the testifier and testimony in proof 
of the facts stated and criticized, viz : begotten by the 
Holy Ghost and birth from a human virgin, were pri- 
marily divine and not human. To make this statement 
credible to adult persons of critical intelligence in the 
uniformity of nature's laws, or the unexceptionable in- 
terrelation of the human sexes in the propagation of the 
human species, is a task of impossible achievement, when 
there is taken into account and duly weighed the facts 
that for any exception to this uniformity, whatever may 
be claimed for a divine testifier, and testimony to the 
one exception. It is from human testifiers alone, all 
of whose knowledge our author declares is imperfect, and 
the hearts of all men are deceitful, and whose integrity 
is to be suspected, and there is no universal ground of 
human faith, that the testimony comes to us, that there 
is a divine testifier as well as that testified to. Our au- 
thor says: "That is credible which is not apparent of 
itself, nor certainly to be collected antecedently from 
its cause or reversely from its effect, or made evident by 
argument, or reference to other truths, or self-evident, 
yet notwithstanding appears to us to be true, not by 
manifestation but by attestation, and as so moves us to 
assent not of itself, but by virtue of the testimony given 
to it ; this is properly said to be credible, and assent unto 
this upon such credibility, is in the proper notion faith 
or belief." But he has no direct testimony of a divine 
or human testifier to the unnaturalness of the averments 
aforesaid, but at the best only second-hand, or more 
likely more remote still, from the alleged begetter and 
the virgin-conceiver, who never had a thought of the 
improbability of any thing or any event declared to 
them by their recognized religious teachers, as a majority 
have not now, whose testimony, for the truth of probable 
events that might be and are evident to the senses and of 
common occurrence, is unreliable by the admission of 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 235 

our author, who has, uot withstanding, called to the wit- 
ness stand to prove or make credible events, whose prob- 
ability is antagonized by the begetting and uterine births 
of the human race. That there was such begetting or a 
human virginal uterine birth either of a human or divine 
being,there is no direct and unequivocal testimony in 
the New Testament, by such witnesses even as he has 
called. That which is most direct as to such a begetting 
is not by the begetter, but by a foreteller of what shall 
be, by an individual of an order of being whose real 
objective existence is as problematical and improbable as 
that of the alleged begetter. And so anthropomorphic is 
the act as to be expressed by stating the usual human 
form and manner of the act. And the accomplishment 
of the act and the conception has the authority for its 
reality that a dream can give. And all this for which 
such testimony stands and makes credible and moves our 
assent on the sole ground of the credibility of such at- 
testations, is said to have been done to fulfill an ancient 
prediction that a virgin should conceive. And here we 
obtain a clue to the instigation of the testifiers of all 
the marvels of the New Testament for which there is no 
corroborative testimony. 

Discussion 52. A creator of nature, not from neces- 
sity to produce a nature such as it is, but by absolute 
arbitrament such as arbitrary and irresponsible power 
should determine, might, presumably, make the anteced- 
ent of any birth of any life or any kind of life such as 
he pleased. But that nature or the universe is not a 
creative product, but is in itself eternal and uncreated, 
we think has already been shown in this essay, and its 
causative relations to effects fixed beyond any power to 
change or make void. It is now acknowledged, says Mr. 
Mill, by nearly all the ablest writers on the subject, that 
natural religion is the necessary basis of revealed. But 
this would rule out the Hebraic and Christian religions. 
For these upon their very face purport, and by constant 



236 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

implication declare themselves to be revelation at first 
hand, and in no sense or degree acknowledge dependence 
on nature for their source, sanction or corroboration, or 
present nature in proof of the divine existence. It is 
by revelation that the creation of the universe was made 
known. The worship of nature, or natural religion, 
would assume the self-supremacy of nature, and deny 
its dependence upon a creator and master. There may 
be, and there are, grounds for a religion of nature as 
supreme, but in this there is no theos or theology, and 
it admits of no interference with the laws of nature. And 
as Bacon says, natural theology is incompetent to ground 
any affirmative knowledge. Inanimate nature has no 
final cause or causes for its changes and production of 
forms and their functions, but only efficient, and these 
not intelligent, but intelligible. 

I have already dealt, in part, with the assumption 
of a created nature, or the material, space and time uni- 
verse, and found it to be utterly gratuitous on the 
ground that eternal uncreated existence is a necessary, 
self-evident and primal postulate. Or perhaps rather, 
the unavoidable conclusion from the fact that there is 
existence. An absolute created existence from non-ex- 
istence, or Sir W. Hamilton's mythic mystic transub- 
stantiation of a spirit-deity into the material space and 
time universe without either pantheism resulting, or loss 
of identity, integrity or completeness of personality to 
the deity, are not of necessity assumed nor demonstrable 
propositions, nor reasonable nor conceivable. Nor can 
it be shown that a grain of matter has ever been created, 
from which the monstrous step might be taken to the 
creation and order of the universe. And when we have 
eternal uncreated existence given from the necessity of 
existence and of thought, the assumption of creation is 
gratuitous and superfluous in the extreme. And being 
propagated for belief on which to found the interference 
of a creator, it behooves to be proven clearly and con- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 237 

spicuously in order to ground the obligation to believe. 
For I take it no creation, no creator. Adopting the first 
two axioms of Spinoza, "Everything which is, is either 
in itself or in some other thing. And that which cannot 
be conceived through another, must be conceived in 
itself." We cannot conceive matter in the creator of 
matter, nor can we conceive a creator of matter, nor is 
their need in matter itself or in the thought of it, or its 
order or becomings, to aver its creation. Then theology 
rests on no better grounds than the Theogeny of Hesiod. 
And there is no more acute theologian than Cicero in 
his Nature of the Gods. And one instance of the imita- 
tion of Hesiod in his genealogy or origin of deities is 
given in the New Testament and ably defended by Par- 
sons on the Creed. In searching for cause, which is the 
universal tendency of all human intelligence, and is the 
germ of science and philosophy, the undeveloped efforts 
to surmise how things came to be, and came to be as 
they are, lead to the assumption of Gods suggested by 
man's ability to produce some changes, and his Gods 
were anthropomorphic as creators and controllers of all 
things. But in the growth and extension of science and of 
criticising thought, the conclusion has been slowly reached 
that there are no such existences as childish fancy con- 
jectured. But as many guesses of the past linger into the 
future of growing fact, and now as then are governing 
principles of practical life, polytheism with a part of our 
race has given place to so-called monotheism. But in the 
Christian system there lingers a veiled tritheism and a 
theogony which discovers its parental derivation. There is 
an atavism in Christian theology. The further growth and 
extension of knowledge by which all Gods but one have 
been abandoned, will lead to the evident needlessness of 
the survival of one as of the many. And the utter im- 
possibility of any proof of the creation of matter, and the 
objective certainty attested by the subjective necessity 
of there being' eternal uncreated existence, and the eter- 



238 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

rial and supreme verities and validities not susceptible 
to the accusation of having been created, that must con- 
dition and are presupposed in supposing any existence 
whatever, creator or created, — space and time; and the 
conviction not contradicted by any experience, that the 
universe has and can have no superior or master, but em- 
bodies and exercises all power and all cause and all effect 
in its own underived right of self-existence and becom- 
ing, will lead the higher philosophic thinker to abandon 
the advocacy of a creation and a creator. There must be 
eternal uncreated existence, as Ave have so often said. The 
universe is the Universum of existence and of being, the 
comprehensive all, self-evident, self-ongoing, self-endur- 
ing without waste of substance or deterioration of power, 
for what exists without beginning must continue without 
ending. All becoming and ceasing, all life and mind and 
intelligence and feeling, and power of thought and deed, 
are in and of the universe. There is no transcendent, and 
the imminence of the intelligent principle is involved in 
it, as is every principle, and in no sense is foreign to it. 
There is no more a transcendent concept possible than 
existence. There is one eternal existence and being of in- 
finite diversity in unity. 

Besides the universal tendency of man to seek a 
cause, there is in the norm of human nature a feeling of 
dependence flowing from the consciousness that he did 
not construct his body and was not the author of the 
functions, the very sensuous, intelligent self, and has no 
direct volitional power to maintain the body's integrity 
or preserve it from the liability at any moment to become 
diseased, and the certainty that at some time not very 
remote from the present, it will become like every struct- 
ure of nature's building disintegrated or dissolved into 
its material elements, and its function, the conscious, 
cherished self, become, as seems to be the case, as extinct, 
non-existent, as before the beginning of the structure of 
the body, the parental conception. This, to most persons, 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 239 

is the acme of mental distress. And there is a seeking, 
even longing for some ground of relief and of assurance 
that our fears shall not be realized. Hence there has been 
devised and added a supplemental revelation in the 
Christian scheme, some 2000 years later than the first, 
in which the particular point, as well as some others of 
man's indefinite continuance (but where and how not 
definitely stated) after death was clearly and distinctly 
enunciated and provided and some 2000 years before 
our time, for man's comforting assurance that death to 
human consciousness is only seeming to the beholder, 
and not real to experience. Nay, it is but the way into a 
larger and fuller personal life by the grace of the creator 
of the universe, through our believing acceptance of it, 
and obedience to, the said revelation. And I am not go- 
ing to deny that in our need there may come to us from 
our strong and sincere faith, the consolation and even 
ecstatic joy that has been manifested and declared now 
and then. Men and women have seemed happy dying in 
flames and upon the rack in defence of their religious 
faith. But a suspicion arises as to the divine object of 
their faith bestowing this happiness upon them as reward 
and gnarantj^ that they have the right conception of his 
will and are fulfilling it in their martyrdom, since it 
comes equally to those thus maintaining opposite views 
of that will. It finds its reasonable exegesis in the sub- 
jective psychical state induced by our faith without de- 
pendence upon the objective verity or its supposed 
source. For we all know that we have been as confident 
in our belief of the truth of certain propositions and 
would have staked our lives upon them, that turned out 
to be utterly false, as in our belief of propositions that 
proved to be true as we held them. For strong faith in 
what is only speculative and cannot be verified object- 
ively, has all the effect upon believers being subjectively 
true only, as it can have if objectively true and real. 
Theistic and religious faith is a subjective state, and for 



240 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

its most potent effects rests upon a mental picture of 
faith's own drawing or adoption. Witness the asceticism 
and hermit life of Christian Europe, in Lecky's History 
of European Morals. "The most perfect hermits 
are supposed to have been many days without food, many 
nights without sleep, and many years without speaking." 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall; and all on the coercing au- 
thority of a theistic and religious mental picture whose 
objective verity never was and never could be realized. 
And this constraining subjective authority taken to be of 
objective certainty, appertains to enthusiasts of all theis- 
tic religions, whether their deities are many or one, 
whether anthropomorphic or ideal, or beyond any 
satisfactory picturing, or sensuous as idols of human 
selection or formation, or transcendent or imminent 
or both, and makes all religions equally true to 
their devotees and equally false to their rejectors; be- 
cause all are equally destitute of any objective veri- 
fication. But all theistic religions claim to rest 
upon the same foundation, viz-, revelation, in some 
way communicated. We have no proof that mind or 
spirit is a self-existent or created entity, and can exist in- 
dependently of matter. And if there should be intelli- 
gences on other planets and beyond the solar system, we 
have no reason to believe they are less dependent on mat- 
ter as their cause than ourselves. And this does not argue 
against the possibility of a continued future life after 
this, but rather in its favor, on the ground that matter 
is self-existent and eternal, and not dependent on the 
will and caprice of a creator and superior, for it has no 
superior and is without creation. And as matter and its 
relations have evolved this life, they may continue it. 
The foundation, the warp and woof of our life is in the 
dust and its moving mechanics. But the dust is eternal 
and causeless. 

All matter hangs suspended in space and is ever 
moving. What could be more insecure. But its security 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 241 

is attained through opposing tendencies and forces. 

"All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace." 
Tts persistence in existence has all the guaranty that, 
what exists without beginning to exist must continue 
without ceasing to exist can give it. The living matter 
of our bodies beginning to live in our parents' bodies, we 
know not how remote, and charged with their traits and 
tendencies, and through that strange capacity of organ- 
ized living matter called atavism, recalling from remote 
ancestry some bodily feature, or complexion, or mental 
trait, and imposing these upon present offspring, that 
had been forgotten and not manifested upon intervening 
posterity. This inheritance of mental characteristics as 
well as bodily features makes for the truth of traducian- 
ism rather than creationism. The living matter of our 
bodies is ever dying and being eliminated, and dead mat- 
ter .entering and becoming living and functioning the 
continuance of the identity of ourselves — the personal 
conscious intelligence. While this conscious self is ever 
changing, losing by forgetting, and filling by a flowing 
inward of continued experience, yet remaining essential- 
ly the same as long as incidents of the past are sanely felt 
to be a part of our history, as the integrity of the body 
is continually disintegrating but new building matter is 
as constantly filling the old places and the same physio- 
logical and psychical work with slight difference, the 
bodily form and features remain cognizable to ourselves 
and our neighbors. Matter is the only substance. Causa- 
tion is limited to phenomena, says Fichte, and extends 
not to matter, which is eternal and uncaused. As there 
has been no beginning of substantive existence, so there 
has been no beginning to change, therefore no beginning 
to phenomenal existence. To speak of a first cause is as 
absurd as to speak of a first existence or a first time, 
where eternal is the qualifier, which denies beginning. 
Effect is as old as cause, and both are ageless. "Physics 
knows nothing of causation except that it is the invaria- 



242 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ble and unconditional sequence of one event upon an- 
other/' J. Fiske. There exists but one substance, and 
thought and extension are not substances but attributes,, 
says Sphwza. Motion, which is the eternal way of exist- 
ing of matter, introduces into bodies definite internal 
structure and external form, and consequently co-ordi- 
nate properties and qualities appear. No matter and no 
matter in motion, no life and no conscious personality. 

As critical observation and -reflection advance to ex- 
perimental tests and mathematical proofs, as the com- 
position of atoms of all material substances, and the in- 
finite difference of properties and functions arise from 
what in the last analysis yet reached, is only positional 
and motion differences in their relations of one undiffer- 
entiated matter, except numerical difference, is an illus- 
tration. Properties, qualities and functions, are se- 
quences of material combinations or mechanics. Note the 
whole realm of physics and chemistry and the productive 
arts for obvious proofs. An intellectual and ethical hu- 
man life, the ethics embracing the entire field of animal 
sentiency, are the highest evolved products of material- 
ism. For materialism connotes the entire complement of 
existence knowable and knowing. Life finds its source 
and seat and capacity in material relations. This is ob- 
vious. And he who would argue for the immaterial or' 
spiritual as cause and source of the material, must set 
aside the obvious and persistent, for what appears only 
transcient as a function of local organized matter 
through chemical placement and movement. And the 
strength of its argument is this : Matter, or we will say, 
unconscious nature, cannot evolve consciousness and the 
knowledge of itself. And he will cite many witnesses to 
the same negation. 

Discussion 53. By progressive evidence that nature- 
is complete and all comprehensive in itself, and compe- 
tent cause of all becomings, the spiritualistic thauma- 
turgy, or theistie causation which was never an intelli- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 243 

gible explanation of anything to anybody, for no one 
knows or pretends to say how such cause operates, or 
knows that it does or did operate, or knows there is or 
was such a cause, has been gradually dropped out from 
school text books on science, and is weakened in its hold 
upon scientific culture. For the scientific is the historical 
or inductive method of study which discovers facts as its 
premises by critical observation and experimentation, 
and does not invent them, and from its premises only 
legitimate inferences are drawn, i. e., the unknown is dis- 
covered through the known. And not the ontological 
method which is the theistic and the religious, and as- 
sumes the unknown, the not self-evident, and the not of 
necessity postulatory to account for the unknown, from 
which any inference, one as well as another, may be 
drawn to satisfy the purpose of its assumption. Hence, 
God is assumed as the author of opposing theologies and 
religions and endowed with conflicting characters. And 
theism lingers as a relic of developed barbaric animism, 
and dominates Christendom. "Spiritual philosophy has 
influenced every province of human thought, and the his- 
tory of animism once clearly traced, would record the 
development not of religion only, but of philosophy, sci- 
ence and literature." Ency. Brit. 11-57. The method of 
deductive reasoning is the mathematical, whose princi- 
ples or premises are axiomatic, the a priori. But a cre- 
ator or creation is not so found. Descartes' method was 
the ontological. He sought to discover an intuitive 
truth whose certitude would survive every critical doubt 
that could be urged against it, as a fundamental princi- 
ple of a new philosophy, as skepticism had laid aside the 
ground principles of ancient philosophies. He found the 
certitude in his own consciousness, any doubt of which 
only confirmed its certainty, since to doubt involves the 
certainty of consciousness as a state of the subject. And 
he expressed it in the formula : "I think, therefore I 
am. ' ' But how far is this form a universal and necessarv 



244 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

objective existence on which alone can repose the super- 
structure of philosophy, which is defined : ' ' The body of 
highest truth; the organized sum of science, the science 
of the most fundamental matters; the matter, form, 
causes and ends of things in general; a comprehensive 
synthesis of the doctrines and methods of all knowledge ; 
a coherent body of theorems concerning the Cosmos, and 
concerning man in his relations to the Cosmos, of which 
he is a part. ' ' It is true that the subjective certainty of 
personal consciousness is beyond the reach of doubt to dis- 
turb, is perhaps the first truth to be established in an ax- 
iomatic formula, as consciousness in its direct testimony 
by necessary affirmation, and indirect testimony through 
the senses, surrounds and interpenetrates, and is our 
only test of personal existence, which existence in gen- 
eral and its conditions, space and time, are the subject- 
matter of all science and philosophy. Of his own con- 
sciousness he was absolutely certain. And he saw in this 
as he says, the assurance that to think, it was necessary 
to exist, for non-existence could not think. And from 
this he drew the general conclusion that, all things which 
we clearly and distinctly conceive, exist. And as he at- 
tentively examined what he was, he observed that he 
could suppose that he had no body, and there was no 
world nor any place in which he might be, but could he 
not suppose that he was not, since he thought. That he 
had the positive power to think his body or the world 
non-existent, may be doubted, unless one has the positive 
power to think non-existent that which is at the same 
time existing, constituting and streaming into his con- 
sciousness through his senses, as well as general sense of 
life as the product of all the vital processes, constituting 
the bodily perception, and which is expressed in one word 
— the coenesthesis. The most one could affirm is the nega- 
tion of positive thinking — not to think of body or the 
world. But this is not the same as actively thinking 
them non-existent. His ontological method to the exclu- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 245 

sion of the inductive, led him to the mistake of deducing 
existence in general from consciousness, instead of find- 
ing consciousness in existence, as the first universal and 
necessary postulate. If he had traced his consciousness 
regressively he would have found that it was in and im- 
plied the antecedent existence of his body and an indef- 
inite line of past progenitors, and the beginning of his 
body was in his mother's ovary before his mind existed. 
And had abortion been produced, or growth and develop- 
ment of his body been arrested, there never would have 
appeared the brilliant and famous intellect of Rene 
Descartes, who demonstrated "that all parts of a ge- 
ometrical magnitude could be represented by algebraic 
equations, which wrought an entire change in the mathe- 
matical and physical sciences." And reasoning from all 
the data that we have, that is not manifestly fictitious 
or lack substantial proof, and from analogy, that prop- 
erties and functions of compounds are new, and do not 
exist in their constituents, his mind was the function of 
the complex of the material mechanics constructed in his 
mother's womb, and wrought by the powers of nature 
without a supernatural, which is not a provable factor 
anywhere at an}' time. In this construction, as in all that 
takes place in utero in animal life, and indeed, in all the 
processes of germination, growth and development of 
vegetative life, and in the form and coloring of the floral 
world, there appears involved and operating the most 
acute and discriminating constructive intelligence. Is 
this intelligence in the matter thus active, or is it in 
some remote existence, or is there an intelligent agency 
imminent in the matter but not material, or is the con- 
structive force involved resident in the relationship of 
all the agencies engaged in the operations, and is not 
properly and really conscious intelligence such as the 
thinking out and guiding the pen in this statement, but 
is of the prolific and ample source from which our own 
intelligence is individualized and has its working, and 



246 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

from which all becomings arise — the cosmic nature in its 
own original right and power? For sun, moon and stars, 
are involved as producing factors, and space and time 
as conditioning factors in every man's intelligence, and 
in the form and fragrance of every flower. 

Descartes reached conclusions that his premises did 
not warrant. For he says: "I thence concluded that I 
was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists 
only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has no 
need of any place, nor is dependent on any material 
thing; so that I, i. e., the mind by which I am what T am, 
is wmolly distinct from the body, and is even more easily 
known than the body, and is such, that although the bo^y 
were not. I should continue to be all that I am. And as 
I observed that in the words, I think, lie nee, I am, there 
is nothing which gives me assurance of this truth beyond 
this, that I see very clearly that in order to think, it is 
necessary to exist. I concluded that I might take as a 
general rule, the principle that all things which we very 
clearly and distinctly conceive, exist/' And he goes on 
to say, "that he saw that his being was not perfect, and 
there must be something more perfect than himself. And 
has a clear and distinct conception that he must hole! 
this notion (of some thing more perfect than himself) to 
be placed in him by a Nature that is in itself more per- 
fect than himself, that is to say, in a single word was 
(rod. " And by the above reasoning he had established 
the objective existence of God, with power and intelli- 
gence to create, and put into and preserve in orderly 
operation as it is, the material space and time universe 
deducing all things ontologically from the intuitive sub- 
jective truth of his own consciousness. But how coui<), 
or why should, a perfect cause produce an imperfect e! • 
feet? He says he is a substance whose whole essence or 
nature consists only in thinking and its existence has no 
need of any place. But if there be substance, or think- 
ing, must they not be somewhere, or can they be, and be 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 247 

nowhere? And thinking evidently implies an individual- 
ized process taking place in something-, for it has its be- 
ginning, continuance, its changes and its suspension in 
dreamless slumber, its anesthetic abeyance, and its final 
obliteration in death, so far as it is objectively traceable. 
And time is presupposed as well as place. It is a local- 
ized effect and must have its cause. If one asserts that 
thinking is never suspended nor extinguished, the burden 
<>f proof lies upon the asserter, for his position is not evi- 
dently true. I can veil conceive that the I, or self, or 
subject, is confined exclusively to consciousness and does 
not include the thing that thinks, for that may not be 
conscious as that which furnishes water is not aqueous, 
nor the process that functionates the consciousness, 
which to me, is material and cosmic. If one affirm an im- 
material entity, which has been well defined as an onto- 
logical chimera, is that which thinks and is conscious, 
and is the I, the self, or subject, he must validate his 
affirmation. And if he say, this is' a needful postulate, 
because the whole unconscious cosmos is not a competent 
cause of consciousness, for what is not in the thing can- 
not be gotten out of it. Conceding this in some sense the 
effects need not be like their causes in their form, prop- 
erties, powers, or capacities. The causes of acidity are 
not acid. And the causes of intelligence need not be in- 
telligent, but only intelligible, because they are and must 
be orderly interrelated, and this suffices for my present 
purpose. And the laws of nature are no more than these 
interrelations. Thinking belongs to, and takes place in a 
living organized animal body, and is not known separate 
and apart from such body. "All organized living human 
bodies are composed of parts similar to those composing 
inorganic bodies, and no others are known to be involv- 
ed, and which have themselves existed in the inorganic 
state and will pass into that state again. But the 
phenomena of life which result from the juxtaposition of 
these parts in a certain manner, and the moti&n of these 



248 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

parts, bear no analogy to the phenomena which would be 
produced by the same elements related in a different 
manner." Mills Logic. The time-keeping property of 
the mechanics of the watch whose motions of the hands 
are adjusted to correspond in time-order to the axial ro- 
tation of the earth, is conceivable apart from the ma- 
terial mechanics which functionate the motion of the 
hands, i. e,, the time-keeping- property, and is that for 
which we most value the watch. But the property is ab- 
solutely non est, without the mechanics. So without the 
material mechanics of the body, we cannot affirm the con- 
scious self, or subject. But the mechanics are not the sub- 
ject. 

Descartes maintained that the certitude to us of 
God's existence and creative power is ideally and really 
demonstrable as the three angles of a triangle are equal 
to two right angles. His test of certitude was that, what- 
ever we clearly and distinctly conceive or have an idea 
of has an objective existence. Since the idea could not 
arise in us unless its real entity were in the object. The 
conception of God as of all geometrical axioms is innate. 
By which he means that all minds think in the same 
forms with the same definite contents when certain pro- 
A'ocations or stimulants are presented to them. The sub- 
stance in which thought immediately resides is called 
mind or spirit. The substance which we understand is 
supremely perfect, and in which we conceive nothing 
that involves defect or limitation of perfection is called 
God. All things are in objects which we clearly conceive 
to be in them. Whence it follows that the objective real- 
ity of our ideas requires a cause in which this same re- 
ality is contained. In the idea or concept of a thing ex- 
istence is contained; because we are unable to conceive 
anything unless under the form of a thing which exists. 
And in the concept of a being sovereignly perfect, per- 
fect and necessary existence is contained. 

These statements are taken from Descartes' Medita- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 249 

tions. He calls them Definitions, Postulates and Axioms, 
and thinks he shows that the existence of God, his crea- 
tive power, and such other attributes as he conceives be- 
long to him, are as demonstrable as the three angles of a 
triangle are equal to two right angles. It was his aim, 
he declares, to write nothing that he could not give exact 
demonstration of after the manner of the geometers. 

There is probably no word standing for an objective 
entity, concerning which men (if they are intelligent and 
conscientious) feel more certain that their notions of ex- 
istence and attributes have no real correspondence to the 
actual entity, than the word God. Consequently the word 
God with any definite meaning attached, is the farthest 
from the certainty of a demonstration. Descartes entered 
upon his philosophy with a self-evident truth, viz: "I 
think, therefore I am. ' ' His universal inference from this 
was, with all its guaranty of certainty attaching, that if I 
think of anything the thing must exist to be the cause of 
my thinking it ; and whatever I clearly conceive to be in 
the thing must be in it. For it may with truth be affirm- 
ed that all things are in the objects which we clearly con- 
ceive to be in them. For God has wrought the self -evi- 
dence into the nature of every human soul. " So if I have 
a clear idea or mental picture of a centaur, then there 
must be a real centaur to be the cause of the idea of it in 
me. So there must have been real witches and devils to 
be the cause of the conception of them in Luther and the 
clergy generally who advocated their buring. And John 
Wesley was one of the latest supporters, says Lecky. The 
idea of God is not definite and the same in all minds like 
an axiom or the demonstration of a problem. "We do not 
feel the necessity to pre-suppose the existence of God in 
order to suppose the existence of the world, as we feel the 
necessity of pre-supposing place in supposing existence. 
Axioms are excluded from manufactured articles out of 
nothing, and from being created truths. They are 
nature's, not God's declarations; are the facts, express 



250 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

some of the uncreated relations of the universe, are in- 
volved in the certitude of its eternal mechanics, its intel- 
ligibility. We are products of nature. And in becoming* 
intelligent, become conscious of her facts and methods. 
The notion of God is not implied in the notion of ma- 
terial or mental existence. It has grown out of common 
experience in a natural way. We have before remarked 
the universal tendency of men to seek a cause for what- 
ever their experience brings to their notice. In primitive 
ages the causes of events were all unknown. But men 
soon observed that their spontaneous activities changed 
some things, and these more and more as their experience 
enlarged, until they came to think that all things were 
produced by agencies similar to themselves, but by Gods. 
Hence the Hebrew God made man in his own image, and 
likeness. And the idea of making still clings to the race. 
A man said to me the other day, "I should know there 
was a God by looking into the heavens," as if he saw 
there created or made things, by intelligent and pur- 
posive agency. But the great phenomena of nature such 
as sunrisings, thunder and lightnings, eclipses, require 
greater power than man is equal to. Hence the sugges- 
tion of beings greater than human, but with similar 
methods. Henceforth causes became Gods. It was not a 
primitive thought that anything was eternal and un- 
caused, not even the Gods. All things were made. The 
meaning of the word God or its equivalent in any other 
word, has been developed first from man's physical 
nature and wants, then from his intellectual. And has 
been all the time changing from the definite, visible, 
tangible, audjble and humaniform, and plural, to the 
solitary, invisible, intangible, inaudible, and to the too 
indefinite for exact expression ; and has escaped the ca- 
pacity of exact thought; and has reached the extremest 
generality, diffusiveness and inconceivableness of the 
Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent. The ortho- 
dox would retain the personality. This harks back and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 251 

fellowships God walking in the garden in the cool of the 
day, and Zens living like a Grecian Prince in the midst 
of his family on Olympus. 

Discussion 54. Mind or consciousness is of the phy- 
sical processes, taking- place in the organism in accord- 
ance with the structure and the stimulants addressed to 
it. And it is eminently natural that all men being thus 
alike, should agree in the certitude of fundamental no- 
tions that find their counterpart in universal nature 
which has constructed human beings with capacity is to 
become intelligent in the things of nature in the working 
of the common mechanics of the organism. Hence nature 
is intelligible as we have before remarked, but not every- 
where intelligent. These self-evident facts are involved in 
universal nature, and therefore cannot belie themselves 
when they rise into consciousness. 

': But does matter think, is it conscious and does it 
move of itself? Matter is self -movent, or it acts and 
reacts upon itself to the result of universal motion as 
mode of existing, instead of universal and absolute 
quiescence. And it must exist either in motion or not in 
motion. It is found to be everywhere in motion, where 
intelligence has reached. And changing phenomena and 
force are inconceivable withont motion. Its direction and 
velocity are determined by its local mass and internal 
state and related masses, larger or smaller, near or re- 
mote, with determining factors. We have no ground to 
hold nor need we aver that matter per se feels, or is in a 
state of bare awareness as a universal attribute as is mo- 
tion, from which as an eternal germ, all consciousness 
and intelligence evolves, and consequently all matter is 
living. Matter as matter gives no evidence of being 
alive, nor is anything known that necessitates or even 
renders plausible the inference that all matter is alive. 
Properties and function that are local, changing and 
evanescent as are life, consciosness and intelligence re- 
sult as much and for equal reasons from structural posi- 



252 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

tions and motions of matter and a favoring environment, 
as do the phenomena of electricity, meteorology, physics, 
chemistry and astronomy. Indeed, we have no other source 
of origin for psychics than physics, taking the last word 
in its largest meaning, or matter in certain interrelated 
positions and motions. How unlike are results to their 
causes, or causal antecedents. Note the unlike and often 
trivial causes, mere words perhaps, of some long and de- 
structive wars. We cannot agree with Descartes that 
there is always as much real existence in the cause as in 
the effect. But one thing is seldom if ever the complete 
cause of an effect. There must be at least concurring 
circumstances. We say that some local material struct- 
ures chemically arranged and interiorly worked by 
physical and physiological forces all natural, are the ap- 
parent seats and sources of consciousness, intelligence 
and voluntary action, beyond proof to the contrary. 
And that life and psychic properties and functions do as 
apparently result from definitely material structures 
aforesaid, which are human organisms, as do the simple 
chemical and electrical properties and functions result 
from other specific but much less complex material 
structures appropriate to their results, with no more 
reason to postulate the supernatural or a hidden imma- 
terial entity in the one class of phenomena than in the 
other, either as proximate and direct, or remote and in- 
direct causes. We say apparent, for intelligence is not at 
present more able to trace causes into necessary effect, or 
antecedents into necessary consequent, as to chemical or 
electrical products from their uniform precedents, than 
sensation and intellectual or emotional consciousness 
from its uniform precedents, none of which precedents 
contains a trace of the specific properties of their conse- 
quence ; showing that the difference in antecedents from 
consequents in both classes of cases lies in the difference 
of the mechanical arrangement of matter, as the mathe- 
matician is able to trace or rather foresee, the steps of the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 253 

solution of a mathematical problem to its final and neces- 
sary resolution. And there is an intellectual provision 
not of the hoiv, but that all caused consequents in the 
physical and psychical departments of nature are as 
fully necessitated by their material causal antecedents, as 
the statement of a mathematical problem contains the 
necessitated way of its solution. How can or why should 
two invisible gases, with fixed and definite properties as 
gases, uniting chemically, which can be conceived only. as 
a determinate mechanical arrangement of the atoms or 
molecules, or corpuscles, of the matter of one with those 
of the other gas, result in water, losing the form and all 
their properties as gases, except weight, which expresses 
the unchanged quantity of material substance, and this 
is never changed by any changed form, property or func- 
tion, in passing from the inorganic to the organic and 
living world, and back again to the inorganic world, 
demonstrating that all changing phenomena are but 
shifting mechanical forms and their consequent proper- 
ties and functions j and as water, takes on new form, 
l^roperties and functions, in the living, economic and in- 
organic worlds. No explanatory answer can be given to 
these questions. They do so unite and so change. The facts 
are made out, but not the how or why. And whoever says, 
it is God's will, God does it, offers no explanation, nor has 
he said anything that he knows, or can intelligibly con- 
ceive. It is the talk of a child to children. Or how a 
microscopic bit of organized and vitalized matter, taking 
forjn, but not the human, and endowments that are hu- 
man, and to be realized years hence in posterity, in the 
ovaries of the mother, and other still smaller bit of or- 
ganized matter, that is to say, differently arranged but 
the same kind of atoms of matter, taking form in the 
testes of the father, dowered with tendency to male-sex 
or female-sex the offspring, and also to transmit to 
future individuals traits that have characterized past 
generations and to be entailed upon future generations, 



254 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

through the next intervening lad or lass, as philosopher 
or imbecile, criminal or moralist, symmetrical or deform- 
ed in body. And these microscopic bits of matter so po- 
tentially endowed are cells of wonderful complexity of 
structure, and may compass the sum total of the heritage 
of the species. And the whole body, save its liquids, 
and all living bodies from and after conception, which is 
the beginnnig of the individual being, are specially 
grouped systems of cells ; and they carry on all the pro- 
cesses of the body, which conspire to functionate personal 
sensation, intellectual and emotional consciousness and 
voluntary action. And life joined to the intelligible of 
nature, becomes individualized intelligence ; which is 
nothing but the intelligible inevitably intrinsic in the 
determinate relationships necessarily secured by the con- 
ditioning validities, space and time, and become con- 
scious through material form and function, as all other 
attributes arise. 

Conception, the proximate beginning of our indi- 
vidual being, consists of a spermatozoan-cell, interpene- 
trating an ovum-cell, and the two cells becoming one cell. 
Thus mingling and so identifying in one process a per- 
sonal unity, the two ancestral lines of typical traits of 
body and mind, and modifying both, with occasional 
wide departures from recent ancestry, to some great ad- 
vance in mental specialty or sense defect, or bodily con- 
tour, either enlarged or dwarfed. And the process of 
formation and development of body is the division of this 
one cell into two equal cells ; and each of these into two 
and so on, each one constantly enlarging. The shaping of 
cells into tissues and tissues into organs and their rela- 
tive placing in the organism follows the same order in all 
normal human gestations. And all this without a direct- 
ing or superintendence of an intelligence either immi- 
nent or transcendent that we know of or need to affirm. 
Life and intelligence being numerical, local and indi- 
vidualized, are responsive to nature's infinite fullness of 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 255 

possible becomings, and cannot be supposed casual of na- 
ture. Or intelligence is the response to nature's intelli- 
gibleness. No higher reach of nature's summit is conceiv- 
able than her universal and necessary intelligibility be- 
coming personal conscious intelligence, with some meas- 
ure of corresponding power to effect changes of property 
by constructing material forms of positional relationship 
through motion, her own method without intelligence, by 
that which underlies and has produced intelligence, viz : 
the universal and necessary space and time orders of 
placing matter by the eternal mode of existing in motion 
that does the placing, from the simplest inorganic to the 
most complex organism; that is, form and structure 
building. So we may say, no material organic structure, 
no conscious intelligence. Structural forms possess, 
evolve and functionate properties, throughout the inor- 
ganic and organic worlds, by virtue of the forms express- 
ing particulars of the cosmic fullness of all possible be- 
comings. Nature builds unto intelligence, not by it. She 
has not constructed the form that carries in itself life 
and highest developed conscious personality by a single 
leap from the inorganic, but attained it by advancing 
steps. It is prophetic in the coming together of particles 
of matter, and may be placed in the universal gravitative 
attraction, the tendency of matter to associate with mat- 
ter, and approaching through differentiating and 
specializing associations, as cohesive, capillary and mag- 
netic attractions, and crystallization, advancing into the 
colloid state, and thence into the organic or protoplasm- 
ic, where life is intrinsic as property of material me- 
chanics, as all mere chemical properties are intrinsic, 
actual and co-ordinate in the chemical structure and 
w^ere not in the constituents of the structure. Proper- 
ties are innate in structure, and inseparable from it. Life 
is property and function intrinsic in a particular 
physico-chemical structure, increasing in variety, in- 
tensity, strength and number of manifestations as struc- 



256 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ture becomes more and more complex, every part of 
which structure is continually undergoing physiogenic 
constructive and destructive metabolic changes or mo- 
tions. This structure is a material entity, and these are 
changes in matter with no known or conceivable effi- 
cient non-material element, creating simple awareness 
of undistinguishable externality and internality, on to 
distinct sentience, separated senses, intellectual and 
ethical consciousness, intelligence, emotional sentiment, 
speech, reasoning, oratory, artistic arrangement, cosmic 
recognition and speculation. A writer in the Nineteenth 
Century says: Since life can find its necessary nobility 
in matter, can it not also acquire its necessary sentience 
from the same source. Sentiency is connate in material 
relationship and environment, where every property 
and function is found. And every one of these mental 
characters and executive acquirements implies as its 
proximate source or cause, some change in the positions 
and motions of the matter composing the material struc- 
ture which is the seat of these phenomena. And any one 
of them may be the special topic of investigation and 
cultivation to more proficiency as an end, as the study 
of electricity or general physics may be pursued as an 
end. What is subjective must be investigated with the 
same subjective tools that investigate the objective. And 
it would not be otherwise, for consciousness, intelligence, 
is that alone which can investigate. And it shows that 
the subjective is but the objective become subjective or 
conscious. For life and all its enlargement is a condition 
or state or property which consciousness recognizes may 
or may not belong to the objective. And belonging to it, 
the objective becomes the subjective, not entitive but 
propertive. 

Discussion 55. This property of life and its riches 
of intelligence and action are created by material pro- 
cesses within the organism, and are the function of these 
processes, and the function is a reverse stimulus upon 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 257 

the processes. That is, the more intelligence and muscu- 
lar action are exercised upon their respective objects, 
within certain limits, and the more our sense percep- 
tions are exercised upon a variety of objects, the more 
vigorous, effective and precise become the processes to 
eventuate their function, viz: intelligence and volun- 
tary action. But the functioned life and intelligence of 
the organism may cease very suddenly on its reception of 
-a very small bit of matter called poison, whose atomic or 
molecular structure and consequent properties, when 
introduced into the living organism, are incompatible 
with the processes of the organism. As a grain of sand 
introduced into the mechanics of a watch, is incompatible 
with its moving machinery, and its function, time-keep- 
ing has ceased. A few drops of Cyanohydric acid taken 
into the human system produces death in a few seconds. 
And this acid is obtained from distillation of kernels of 
bitter almonds and various fruits. And the most deadly 
poisons are nothing but chemical combinations of the 
same kinds of matter which in other combinations are 
constituents of our bodies and our foods. The poison of 
snakes and insects are only different chemical syn- 
theses of the matter which had been their food. And 
the matter of our own bodies which had yielded our 
most exquisite and hallowed pleasure or been a part of 
our wife or child who is or has been the dearest object of 
our affection, becoming putrescent, that is, taking on dif- 
ferent chemical interrelations, and received into the 
inmost working penetralia of our systems may destroy 
our lives. Professor Elmer Gates, of the Smithsonian 
Institute, Washington, D. C, has had persons in differ- 
ent mental states breathe into a tube, and from the con- 
densation of the vapor of the breath upon the walls of 
the tube, obtained a chemical combination indicating by 
its color and reactions, the state of mind of the person at 
the time of the experiment. And he declares a mother 
nursing her infant while in a state of anger so poisoned 



258 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

her milk that the child died of the poison. And emana- 
tions of matter from our bodies too minute to be appre- 
ciated by our senses supplemented by helps that increase 
many fold their power of discernment, in certain dis- 
eases, and received into other bodies, have the power of 
setting up in these bodies similar processes which were 
the diseases in us. And the physical environment of 
temperature, which is a mode of motion of the most 
intimate portions of matter increasing or decreasing ve- 
locity beyond certain extremes, either way, will at once 
destroy or stop the processes of life, because incompatible 
with constant changes of the orderly interstitial disinte- 
gration and reintegration which functionates life and 
intellection. 

All this relates to matter and the products of its 
combinations and structural functions, and apparently 
to nothing else. Life and consciousness and all these 
words mean seem as truly and completely produced, cre- 
ated and brought into being by, and in, a local material 
organism and its material environment, from conception 
and segmentation of the impregnated ovum, on to old 
age, and to disappear and cease to be on dissolution of 
the organism as the properties of any chemical structure 
are created and brought into being, and cease to be on 
the dissolution of the chemical structure. "No one hesi- 
tates to attribute to deficient structure the inability of 
idiots to learn, and all admit that men of genius are 
born and not made." {The Foundation of Zoology, In- 
troduction). It is matter in motions in certain definite 
interrelations in a given area, from corpuscle to nebula,, 
from atom to star, from cell to complete organism, from 
the infinite in extent to the infinitesimal, that originate 
or create all properties and effect all functions, of every 
kind and degree. It is action and reaction grounded on 
the universal and eternal mode of existence, existing in 
motion, rather than not in motion, that generates all phe- 
nomena. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 259 

Prof. Gates says: "My experiments prove that the 
mind-activities create the structures which functionate 
the mind. ' ' He does not mean that the individual mind 
pre-exists and builds the structures which functionate 
the mind. For these structures are built as the muscles 
are, in the mother's womb. But that chemical structure 
precedes and initiates mentation, and by increasing 
mind-producing activities, these invite more blood to the 
structures with the consequence of augmenting the 
growth and power of the structures to produce more 
and more accurate mentation. As it is the exercise of 
the muscles of the blacksmith's arm that draws more 
blood to the muscles and increases their growth and ef- 
ficient working'. And the same is true of the mind-pro- 
ducing cell structure of the brain. Mind-building is 
brain-building. "The experimentalist " says Prof. 
Gates, "believes that the mind entity cannot exist apart 
from structure. The functioning of the individual or- 
ganism is but one factor of mind. A most important fac- 
tor is the fundamental connection of the individual or- 
ganism with the cosmic environment. Mind may be more 
than this, but at least it is this. I make no distinction be- 
tween mind and soul. I do not attempt any further 
definition of mind than that it is the totality of 
the sub-con scions and conscious adaptive functions 
of the organism in interaction with the Cosmos." 
"This brain-building process embodies a number of 
successive stages. The first stage consists in enregis- 
tering the sense impressions of all the senses, so as to 
produce sensation-structures. Cognizance of a sense im- 
pression is called sensation. The conscious state which 
we call perceiving a sense impression produces a chemic- 
al deposition of matter in the brain-cells, and each repi- 
tition of that sense-consciousness increases the amount of 
matter deposited, the result being a sense-memory struc- 
ture. The functioning of that structure constitutes 



260 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

"When the sensation-structures have been formed 
in the brain, we may begin the second stage, which con- 
sists in causing the child to discriminate between the dif- 
ferent sensations previously acquired and to associate 
them in consciousness, so as to produce what is called 
an integrant of the second order, or images, the units of 
which are sensations of the first stage of brain-building. 
And so on through thirty or forty successive stages. ' • 

"The first experiments in my investigations. ' ■ says 
Prof. Gates, "regarding the mind consisted in giving 
certain animals an extraordinary and excessive training 
in one mental faculty, — e. g., seeing or hearing, — and in 
depriving other animals, identical in age and breed, of 
the opportunity of using that faculty. I then killed both 
classes of animals and examined their brains to see if any 
structural difference had been caused by the excessive 
mental activity, as compared with the deprivation or ab- 
sence thereof. During five or six months for five or six 
hours each day, I trained dogs in discriminating colors. 
The result was that upon examining the occipital areas 
of their brain I found a far greater number of brain- 
cells than any animal of like breed ever possessed. The 
trained dogs were able to discriminate between seven- 
shades of red and six or eight of green, besides manifest- 
ing in other ways more mental ability than any untrain- 
ed dog. I have trained four generations of guinea-pig^ 
in the use of the visual faculty, and the children of the 
fourth generation were born with a greater number of 
brain-cells in the seeing-areas than other guinea-pigs not 
so trained. The experiment has been successfully repeat- 
ed several times, and it demonstrates the transmission of 
acquired characteristics. I raise several million infusoria 
in a tank, and then, by gradually increasing heat or cold, 
or concussion, I destroy all except two or three proved to 
be most capable of surviving. These survivors propagate 
several million more, and generation after generation the 
process is repeated. After about twenty-one months, new 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 261 

structures arise, and I make a note of the concomitant 
mentations, or adaptive activities which also arise. As a 
method of psychological research, this is new. The exper- 
iments I have made contradict the conclusions of Weis- 
mann and others regarding heredity. They claim that we 
have no proof of a skill, an idiosyncracy, or a habit ac- 
quired during the lifetime of an individual, being trans- 
mitted to that person's offspring. My conclusion is that 
mental activity creates in mental organism certain struct- 
ures transmissible to their offspring. ' ' From being much 
taught in all the positive material and mental sciences, 
backed and corrected by prolonged and severe laboratory 
experimentation and observational tests of selected cases, 
Prof. Gates has brought out and is laboring to extend 
and perfect a system of scientific mental culture and dis- 
cipline, effective results and of philosophic import, which 
method and import are to my mind decidedly materialis- 
tic : although he declines to declare himself a materialist 
or spiritualist. I see no room or vocation for a spiritistic 
or immaterial entity, whatever that may be, to intervene 
between the material structure which mentates, and the 
reciprocal mentation which builds its own structure. I 
do not believe that any person has ever yet conceived an 
immaterial entity, and saw in the concept by virtue of its 
inherency, consciousness, intelligence, and voluntary ac- 
tion ; or being created and endowed with these atttributes 
by another conception al existence with inherent power 
to create and endow with these attributes. And the only 
ultimate ground for this verbal assumption is another 
groundless assumption, viz: that the material universe 
is incompetent to evolve in individuals various degrees of 
the knowledge of itself, as it seems to do. 

We have no good reason to deny Avhat is in manifest 
agreement with all appearance, and nothing in conflict 
with that appearance, on the arbitrary assumption that 
it is impossible ; viz : that the sum total of individual con- 
sciousness and intelligence (and all consciousness and in- 



262 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

telligence is individual) is effected by and in, the local 
complex of the material organism, in interaction with the 
cosmos environment from which all becomings proceed 
and of which they are. And this is the undesigned and 
unpurposed order of nature we may say; since all we 
know of design and purpose is manifested by individual 
material organisms functioning design and purpose. Is 
there design and purpose in the chemistry of oxygen and 
hydrogen in uniting, to produce water? Is there any- 
thing equaling the accuracy and certainty of means to 
ends in the processes of chemistry and physics, in the de- 
sign and purpose of intelligence? How long a time has 
elapsed since the variation of the earth's rotation on its 
axis or translation round the sun, changing the length of 
the day or year sufficient for intelligence to mark it, or 
when has water been imperfectly formed? Nature seems 
competent in her infinite resources and processes, to 
bring forth consciousness out of unconsciousness, life 
from the not living, and design out of the undesigned. 
"We live in the hope and faith," says Huxley, "that by 
the advance of molecular physics we shall, by and by, be 
able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of 
water to the properties of water as we are now able to 
deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its 
parts and the way they are put together. " "I certainly 
see no reason for doubting," (The Foundations of Zo- 
ology) "that all the properties of organisms may possi- 
bly be some day deduced from the nature and disposi- 
tion of their constituent molecules. If I should live to see 
this proved, I should believe it without remodeling any 
belief I now hold; for most assuredly I do not believe 
that these activities are the result of anything else than 
physical structure. ' ' Huxley says : "If the properties of 
water may be properly said to result from the nature and 
disposition of its component molecules, I can find no in- 
telligible ground for refusing to say that the properties 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 263 

of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of 
its molecules." 

It is a fair inference from this conclusion, that who- 
ever has reached it holds it as likely that life truly and 
fully results from the nature and certain interrelations 
of matter forming protoplasm — "the physical basis" of 
all orders and degrees of life, as matter in some other 
certain interrelations forms water with all its properties. 
All response in the physical, chemical, electrical and 
magnetical worlds, indeed we may say in the whole of 
inanimate nature, is mechanical to mechanics. Note uni- 
versal gravitation, — directly as the mass of matter, and 
indirectly as the square of the distance the masses are 
apart from each other. And we may go further, for there 
is no proof to the contrary, and all analogy favors it, that 
the animate and conscious is a response to the inanimate 
and unconscious world. A recent magazine writer, after 
quoting Butschli, Englemann, Jagadis, Chundra, Rose, 
Loeb, Sir William Ramsay and other workers in the chem- 
ico-animate, and parthenogenetic fields of endeavor, says: 
"The mechanical theory of life has abundantly justified 
itself by an appeal to the facts of nature. For orthodox 
science of to-day, life is solely a matter of mechanics." 
The conception of the living being and the forming of 
the organism in the womb or egg, that is, to functionate 
independent life and consciousness, and voluntary action, 
is chemico-mechanical. Life originates to all appearance, 
in the very complex chemistry of protoplasm. All life 
known to man is an inherent property, or an indwelling 
awareness, truly originated in and by this chemical com- 
bination, and from no other source. It would be absurd 
to say that intelligence preceded and constructed this 
particular protoplasmic chemical, and no other, that it 
might functionate the very intelligence that constructed 
it. 

The atomic constituents of protoplasm are known, 
but not how they are related to each other in their union. 



264 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

And if it were, we should not probably be able to see- 
from this chemical relationship, which can only be con- 
ceived as mechanical, hoAv awareness and intelligence 
could be born of such parentage. But no more can we 
see how the form water and all its properties and uses 
can result from the chemistry of its two constituent gases. 
Or, on looking at a piece of charcoal, or a stream of soot 
issuing from your smoking lamp, are able to see how or 
why, the same element carbon, taking on the form of 
crystallization from stress of its internal nature by ex- 
ternal conditions somewhere in nature's universal labor- 
atory, should be so changed in form, properties and 
value, as to become diamond. This mystery is as yet, as 
fully hidden from intelligence in the property-producing 
departments of nature's activities, — the mystery of crys- 
tallization and much of physics, as the more complex sub- 
stance protoplasm which has the connate or co-ordinate 
property of awareness and intelligence. But the latter 
property, intelligence, is no less apparently the property 
solely of material constituents mechanically arranged 
than is water or diamond. The great difference and 
amazing superiority of protoplasm over the simpler de- 
gree of a chemical complex is that none of these yield 
awareness, nor do they have any reverse action to in- 
crease their growth and perfect and develop their prop- 
erties, as protoplasm has. That is, they have not the 
property of life. Or, life is not coordinate with any other 
material structure than that of the chemistry of proto- 
plasm. We have no more reason to assert that intelli- 
gence is a factor in manipulating the chemical arrange- 
ment of the infinitesimal particles of matter into proto- 
plasm, as nature evidently does without intelligence and 
therefore without design of purposed result, than in any 
other chemical product. And it is as much the nature of 
protoplasm to be alive from its mere chemistry, as for 
another definite chemistry of matter to be water, another 
to be alkaline, or acid; or a certain relationship of zine 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 265 

and copper to yield galvanic electricity ; or for two mass- 
es of matter to attract each other simply because they are 
two masses of matter; or water free from external hin- 
derance to move, will go to the lowest place. We have 
all the reason for the assertion that life naturally results 
from the chemistry of the constituents of protoplasm, 
that we have to assert that water naturally results from 
the chemistry of the constituents of water, which are no 
more aqueous than those of protoplasm are vital. For the 
two elements that in one special form of their union con- 
stitute water and express its properties, are the very two 
of the four which in another special form chiefly or 
wholly constitute protoplasm and express life and sub- 
jectivity. 

Discussion 56. The methods of creating and com- 
municating life and intelligence are the same as for cre- 
ating and communicating chemical properties, but more 
complex, by unintelligent but everywhere intelligible 
nature which is mechanical and is imitated by intelligent 
beings, viz : by the orderly interrelations of material exist- 
ence, that is not itself intelligent or feeling. The alpha- 
bets of languages, of which there are a thousand or more, 
invented by mankind, are all arbitrary marks or charac- 
ters having no intrinsic meaning except that which has 
been agreed upon that the letters and their union into 
words and sentences should stand for, are all mechanical 
expressions of our thoughts and feelings. There is no 
one system of such signs or symbols common to the race. 
But each language is common to a larger or smaller 
group of human beings expressive of their thoughts and 
feelings, and the records of their doings, not understood 
by other groups unless specially learned by them. Think 
how varied are the mechanical forms devised by man to 
express his feelings and communicate them to his fel- 
lows; the manual for deaf and dumb mutes, muscular 
gesticulation, facial expression, different human and ani- 
mal emotional voice expressions, national flag-expres- 



266 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

sions, signs expressing- army and navy, ecclesiastical and 
civil distinctions, musical notations; and the figures, let- 
ters and other characters used to express mathematical 
relations, and the technical placing in certain relations 
these signs and changing their positional relation after 
a definite order thought out, that should carry these 
signs to certain relations with one another, and the math- 
ematical statement of the problem has resulted in its 
solution. All is mechanical in execution. But intelli- 
gence has chosen the characters and endowed them with 
meaning and conducted the process. That is, intelligence 
has conferred intelligibility upon the characters and the 
process, since these stand in definitely ordered relations, 
and orderly relations constitute intelligibility, no mat- 
ter how the relations came about. And all nature's dif- 
ferences and changes are and must be orderly, for all 
existence whether fixed in position or changing by mo- 
tions, must be in the orders of space and time. If they 
must be in these orders, they cannot be otherwise, even 
by the agency of intelligence and voluntary action, for 
no action or conception can be in conflict therewith. Then 
it is useless and absurd to postulate intelligence as cause 
of being in these orders. And surely we cannot suppose 
intelligence to be cause of space and time, or that these 
universal and necessary validities had cause, for what is 
and is without beginning, is eternal and without cause. 
For Ave must affirm that space and time are abstract or- 
ders without beginning, and they condition all intelli- 
gence whatever ; since if it is, it must be somewhere and 
at some time. And we have seen that only one local spe- 
cific interrelation of certain differences of one material 
existence in the midst of a definitely constituted material 
medium, that generates, or there is connate in, and by vir- 
tue of the relations and conditions just named, is aware- 
ness and intelligence. And any interrelations of differ- 
ence remaining fixed or changing orderly along the same 
or similar lines of process, is intelligible, whether the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 267 

relation and change be the eternal order without ante- 
cedent or cause other than the unbegun and everlasting 
nature of eternal existence, or be local and temporary 
and be conducted by intelligent purpose. Therefore 
there is no ground for the inference that nature's uni- 
versal intelligibility has been ordered by intelligence. 
Did intelligence cause that parallel lines can never ap- 
proach nearer, or recede farther from, each other, with- 
out ceasing to be parallel, and the like of all axiomatic 
truths, and so concretely applicable beyond the power of 
intelligent agency to invalidate, and therefore to vali- 
date? Or has advanced intelligence merely discovered 
these truths to be involved in its nature, and so in ob- 
jective existence. For we hold that the subject or self 
is not an independent entitive existence, but simply 
natural awareness. And this means that inanimate ma- 
terial existence has locally become organized, animate, 
conscious and intelligent, as complement or counterpart 
of nature's intelligibility, through growing complexity 
of material interrelations, which is seen to be the source 
of all emerging or co-ordinate properties whether still 
inanimate as mere chemical, or animate and intelligent. 
For we know of no other means than the mechanics of 
body — the organisms by which nature creates and ex- 
presses consciousness of herself. And the exercise of 
which bj^ the human animal at least, upon different ob- 
jects of nature, is to intellectualize. And the more exer- 
cise the more nature responds in adaptive mechanics to 
understand her mysterious intelligibility. Conscious 
intelligence and corresponding practical use, is the sum- 
mit of conceivable advance in dignity and endeavor of 
the possible properties of existence. For we may say, 
since nothing else is verifiable as constant and universal 
antecedent, that mechanics as truly creates and com- 
municates intelligence from the intelligible of nature, 
as it creates and communicates the simpler inanimate 
chemical properties. But this idea, if announced, would 



268 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

be very unpopular at the present time, while cognitive, 
and discriminating powers seem self-advancing, intensi- 
fying and perfecting beyond assignable limits, from a 
reflex stimulus .upon the mechanics which are their 
origin, and to entail this advantage upon posterity. And 
the intelligibility of the universe is as infinite, and its 
counterpart intelligence, is as much natural and of na- 
ture, as intelligibility and can never be proscribed. 
Therefore, the expression : ' ' The unknowable should 
have no tolerance in speech or writings." 

So far as traceable, awareness originates in the 
chemistry of protoplasm. It is no more traceable into 
the elements of protoplasm, the atoms or corpuscles, 
tli an is water traceable into hydrogen or oxygen as such, 
but only into their specific union called chemical. The 
lowest degree of life that our advanced percipiency is 
capable of recognizing, manifests awareness which we 
take to be the beginning of what becoming extended, in- 
tensified and differentiated life, through a correspond- 
ing growing complexity of material organism, is con- 
sciousness, discernment, understanding, the feeling of 
self and of not self. And awareness appears synchron- 
ous with the chemical combination called protoplasm, or 
sarcode. "An albuminoid substance consisting of car- 
bon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, in extremely com- 
plex and unstable molecular combination, is capable 
under proper conditions of manifesting certain vital 
phenomena, as spontaneous motion, sensation, assimila- 
tion, and reproduction, these constituting the physical 
basis of life of all plants and animals. It is essential to 
the nature of protoplasm that this substance consist 
chemically of the four elements named, with or without 
traces of some other elements. The physiological activ- 
ities of protoplasm are manifested in its irritability or 
ready response to external stimuli, as well as its inher- 
ent capacity of spontaneous movement. Protoplasm 
builds up every vegetable and animal fabric, yet is itself 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 269 

devoid of discernable histological structure. An individ- 
uated mass of protoplasm, generally of microscopic size, 
constitutes a cell, which may be the whole of an organ- 
ism or the structural unit of any plant or animal. The 
ovum of any creature consists of protoplasm. The life 
of the organism as a whole consists of the continuous 
waste and repair of the protoplasmic material of its cells. 
The manufacture of protoplasm is a function of the veg- 
etable kingdom. Plants make it directly from the min- 
eral compounds and from the atmosphere under the in- 
fluence of the sun's light and heat." 

The last statement leaves us with the implication of 
life already, and ventures no attempt to account for the 
origin of life. But there are physical indications that 
convince our reason that life must have had beginning 
on our earth. We need not stop to consider the proposi- 
tion that some living organism in a meteor dropped from 
some other orb, for which there is no evidence, and 
against which there is much evidence; or that life was 
created by some God, which is the prevailing religious 
assumption, but which of course, has no scientific aspect. 
Nor can we adopt the aphorism, — "Life only from Life. ' ' 
It is a formula of ignorance, and not of knowledge. It is 
wanting in scientific and philosophic consistency. For we 
have good and sufficient reason for holding that there 
has been wherever we can affirm protoplasm is, material 
conditions compatible with known chemical unions, and 
especially those of protoplasm. Besides, it implies the 
absurdity that life can either begin without cause for be- 
ginning, or it is its own cause for beginning; and vio- 
lates the evident maxim that whatever is and can and 
does cease to be, must have begun to be. It would be har- 
monious with the assumption that matter is eternally and 
universally alive, for which universally alive there is no 
evidence. 

Cataneo, an Italian author of a work on Embryol- 
ogy (1895) as quoted by Charles Godfrey Leland, in a 



270 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

little book entitled The Alternate Sex, says: "However 
the question of spontaneous generation, if not as yet 
solved in the field of experiment, constitutes a problem 
which is anything but absurd in that of philosophy. One 
of the two must be true, either life has always existed on 
our globe, or began to exist. The first hypothesis cannot 
be sustained, because the ancient conditions of the earth, 
owing to excess of elevated temperatures (extremes of 
heat and cold) could not have been adapted to the pro- 
duction and preservation of organic combinations." As 
to the origin of life there are several hypotheses. Ludwig 
Buchner, M. D., in Force and Matter, advocates the no- 
tion that germs or beginning of all living things existed 
from all eternity either in the formless vapor from which 
the earth was gradually condensed, or else in space, from 
which they descended on the crust of the earth after it 
had formed and cooled down, and became capable of de- 
velopment wherever conditions were favorable. This, he 
says, is more intrinsically probable than the hypothesis 
of creation for which there is no scientific foundation 
whatever. Since he proposed this theory (1855) he says 
the cosmical origin of life has become recognized among 
the hypotheses on the beginning of life. As to "the be- 
ginning of life" it may be objected that, after one has 
declared his belief that the germs of all living things ex- 
isted from all eternity, to speak of the beginning of life, 
is to contradict one's self. What is declared to be eternal 
is to deny its beginning. He goes on to say that great 
numbers of microscopic organisms have been found in the 
higher regions of the terrestrial atmosphere, and Angus 
Smith has shown that air, however pure, always contains 
a quantity of organized matter. And that Ehrenberg 
gave his deliberate opinion that organized beings exist in 
space, from whence they occasionally come down on our 
globe. He cites Quinet (1871) as holding that life is of 
cosmical origin, and as old and widely spread as matter 
itself. The earth, he thinks, attracted and still attracts 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 271 

the germs of future life to itself from the cosmic mass. 
Neibauer (1872) has collected facts to show that organ- 
ized germs (of cosmical origin) are carried to us on the 
earth by the air spread throughout the solar system. 
The famous traveller Moritz Wagner considers that life 
is as old as matter, or is imported into it from universal 
space. The atmospheres of celestial bodies, says Wagner, 
like those of the revolving cosmic vapor masses, must be 
regarded as permanent conservatories and eternal green- 
houses of organized germs. Prof. Semper (1876) favors 
the hypothesis that life on our globe is derived from or- 
ganic germs belonging to other worlds, which have fallen 
upon it. And Sir W. Thompson, now Lord Kelvin, and 
the German physiologist Helmholtz, have declared in 
favor of this hypothesis. There is but one thing that 
militates against it, says Buchner, and that is the etxra- 
ordinary low temperature (238 to 256° F.) of the 
cosmic space. This difficulty is overcome, if the meteoric 
stones and meteorites which fall upon the earth actually 
bring with them cosmical life that exists beyond our 
earth. Chemists have demonstrated the presence of or- 
ganized substances in a carbonized condition, in a great 
many meteorites. And Dr. Otto Hahn lately made out 
that he had discovered actual traces of plant and animal 
remains in meteoric stones. And Dr. Weinland, Prof. 
Karsten and others have pronounced his discovery to be 
accurate. And Buchner remarks that spontaneous gener- 
ation of life is an indispensable hypothesis beside the 
fundamental facts of astronomy and geology. It would 
imply a perfectly inadmissible interruption of, and break 
through the universal causal relationship that obtains 
throughout correlated nature, if we admitted that there 
was a single moment in the history of the formation of 
the earth and the celestial bodies in which that unity was 
interrupted or destroyed by a supernatural intervention 
or creative act. The general primordial conditions of our 
planet must have been very different from those of the 



272 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

present time, and probably more favorable for the origin 
of life. We need but think of the atmosphere replete 
with carbon for the living structures that have originated 
our coal-mines, chalk and lime-rock, and coral beds, all 
evidencing life work; the difference in the density, elec- 
trical and heat conditions of the air, and chemical state 
of the ocean and many other facts. 

Discussion 57. There can be but one true, intelligi- 
ble and self -consistent philosophy of the universe. And 
this must ground on the postulate of the eternal self -ex- 
istence of the material quantitative substance. And from 
its intrinsic, un derived power to change in form and 
functional products, all mutations arise. No intelligible 
philosophy can found on the postulate of a created uni- 
verse ; and the interference of miracle in the order of be- 
comings. Science must ascertain how, why and by what 
means local objects and subjects and events become and 
cease. And philosophy must see beyond the individual 
becomings, and find an intelligible, not an intelligent, 
principle that unifies them all, as efficient cause and ef- 
fect. A fiat creation and miraculous intervention must 
ever remain unintelligible, and therefore unscientific and 
unphilosophical. What a huge and monstrous fiction, and 
how widely spread and advocated by intelligent men, is 
the creation, or the calling into existence from non-exist- 
ence, the material universe. I am of the opinion that it 
is never entertained from free intellectual conviction, but 
from emotional and from socially instructed discipline, 
and from social intolerance of public denial. 

There is no supernatural or superuniversal, and no 
real metaphysical that does not revert to the physical and 
mechanical for cause. There is no out of, or beyond the 
natural for its cause, or explanation of any change with- 
in it. It holds within and of itself all intelligence and 
explanation of itself. If there is out of space and before 
time, there is out of the universe, but not otherwise. All 
beincr and existence constitutes the universe. There is 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 273 

that which has always been, and therefore must forever 
continue to be, without change of any kind or in any de- 
gree, and which conditions and is law and order of all 
that exists and all change and becomings, and therefore 
must be distinguished from positive existence and alter- 
ation. These conditions, laws of static and dynamic and 
psychic order, the presuppositions in supposing or af- 
firming- any persistent or changing existence, the abstract 
verities and validities of universal and necessary appli- 
cation, from corpuscle to nebula, from living moneron to 
Deity, from the awareness of a single cell to the asso- 
ciated millions of the human brain, — are space and time. 
On these the mental and corresponding physical certain- 
ties of the mathematics, axiomatic truths, and all sub- 
jective and objective relations, repose, in their funda- 
mental truth and stability. So these validities are equally 
applicable to all objectivity and subjectivity. Or rather I 
will say, being universal and of necessity objective valid- 
ities, they must be valid for every subject and subjective 
state. For the intelligent subject is derived from intelli-. 
gible objectivity, and is neither more nor less than local 
objectivity become conscious, and to some degree a voli- 
tional activity. And this embodied conscious, volitional 
activity is the self, a functional product of chemically 
organized matter. And what is universally true in the 
objective cosmos, and all experience not only verifies but 
is itself verified by its constancy and invariableness, and 
no experience antagonizes, — I mean self-evident or what 
are called a priori truths grounded in space and time, 
must have their source and place in, and as part of the 
objective universe, and hence of necessity must be in 
subjective consciousness. 

No propositions seem to me more absurd than some 
of the Kantian metaphysical dogmas: "that space does 
not represent the relation of objects among themselves, 
nor any determination which is inherent in objects them- 
.selves, and would remain though all subjectivity were re- 



274 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

moved. Space is nothing if we leave out of consideration 
the condition of a possible experience. Time is not a de- 
terminate order inherent in things themselves, and an- 
tecedent to things as their condition. Time is nothing but 
a subjective condition under which all intuitions take 
place within us. Time is nothing but the form of inter- 
nal sense; is simply a subjective condition, and apart 
from the subject, is nothing. The reality of external ob- 
jects does not admit of strict proof . Hitherto it has been 
supposed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. 
But objects must conform to our mode of cognition." 
Here are some of the data of idealism, and they antagon- 
ize universal experience. If space is not a real objective 
relation of objects among themselves, then there are no 
real objects; then the mathematical determination of the 
distances ol the planets from the sun and from each 
other, and the objective and mutual relations of sun,, 
moon and earth have no objective validity; and if space 
does not determine what part or if the whole disk of the 
sun will be eclipsed, and what part and the limits of the 
earth's surface the shadow will cover; and if time is not 
a real objective relation separating yet definitely connect- 
ing successive occurrences, and if astronomers do not 
ascertain these facts objectively and accord to them ob- 
jective validity, but do nnd them as ideas in their own 
minds and impose them upon the heavens and upon the 
senses of all mankind; and if time is nothing but a sub- 
jective condition, and does not in its own verity deter- 
mine the duration of the eclipse and the shadow, accord- 
ing to the time-rate of motion of the bodies of matter in- 
volved in the eclipse, as objective facts and objectively 
ascertained; and if time is nothing but the form of in- 
ternal sense, and simply a subjective condition, and apart 
from the subject, is nothing; then but for the astrono- 
mers and the star-gazers, who must first exist and gen- 
erate all objectivity, there were no astronomy as there 
seems to be, independent of all minds to view and con- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 275 

template the heavens, and before there were minds to 
create and project outwardly all objectivity, to the self- 
deception of all sense-observers including* the idealists 
themselves. Then these calculations and the phenomena 
they pre-announce have no real objective validity. But 
universal sense-experience declares they have objective 
validity in their own intrinsic right and authority, since 
they have predictive demonstration. And man has sim- 
ply recognized, and in no sense given law to their ap- 
pearance, the facts and the method of ascertaining their 
order and time of occurrence. And the facts and the 
method are both and equally objective discoveries, the 
one through the intuitive capacity of the senses, the other 
by mental contemplation of the objects, their space and 
time relations. And the recognition and the contempla- 
tion, and the calculation, are the functions of organized 
living matter, localized and individualized and called 
man. And the subjective is only the perceiving and the 
calculating; that is, the intelligibility of the physics of 
the heavens, has become a unitary and capital intelli- 
gence. 

If no space and no time but subjective, then no sun, 
moon nor stars, but subjective, nor possible experience, 
nor even subject. For if the perceiving and feeling sub- 
ject is, the presupposition immediately and of necessity 
is suggested that, if it is, or the subject asserts itself as 
being, somewhere and sometime must be already, as a 
condition of the being of the subject. The objective must 
antedate and embrace the subjective. If space and time 
have no objective verity in their own being, they can 
have no subjective verity. These abstract conditions of 
all existence and universal and necessary validities, are 
absolute and independent being, and without the possi- 
bility of supposing any conditions mi which they have 
their being. I have not denominated these abstractions 
existences, but have said they are validities and verities 
and conditions on which all existence whatever depends, 



276 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

being is a more comprehensive allegation than positive 
existence and embraces it, whether subjective or object- 
ive. And contrary to the assertion of Kant, space and 
time which can never be identified with either subjective 
or objective existence, are of necessity involved in both, 
since no existence real or supposed, or even the supposi- 
tion without these conditions as facts of being are pre- 
supposed. If objects and thoughts are, they must be em- 
braced under these conditions. And these conditions arc 
in no way affected by positive existence and phenomena. 
But they affect positive existence and phenomena. Posi- 
tive existence, static, moving, conscious or inanimate, is 
affected by these abstract and universal verities and 
validities. Think of everywhere operating gravitation, 
and the order of the heavens and the earth as the conse- 
quence. These objects and this order are subject to the 
laws inherent in space and time. And these conditioning 
laws are utterly indifferent to positive existence or con- 
scious intelligence, and whether known or not. And our 
cognition of these objective verities must conform to 
their order of being, and cannot prescribe their order or 
being, or the way that we shall know them. 

"Time is nothing but a subjective condition, and 
apart from a subject is nothing. " This means that the 
conscious subject gives being or verity to time, and were 
there no thinking subject, time would not be. Time has 
only thought-being, nor has space or material existence 
any other. "Objects of sense exist only in the mind/' 
says Berkeley. And this is the distinguishing allegation 
of idealism. "As to what is said of the absolute existence 
of unthinking things without any relation to their being 
perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse 
is per dpi, nor is it possible they should have any exist- 
ence out of minds of thinking things which perceive 
them/' The Principles of Human Knowledge by George 
Berkeley. But there are many things said in this little 
book that seem incompatible with the quotation, as it is 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 277 

impossibJe that any intelligent man with normal senses 
and reflection, who says or writes anything, whose com- 
mon-sense should not betray his adverse theory. The uni- 
versal sense of mankind declares, in their practice that 
an external world exists, and which does not depend on 
any perception of it, and would remain though all con- 
scious observing existences should be removed or had 
never existed. 

According to the geological periods or eras of the 
earth 's developing stratas, the era of mind capable of ob- 
serving and contemplating either the objective not-self, 
or the subjective self, is relatively very recent. And the 
world recedes to the azoic period in which there are no 
evidences of any living things whose forms are preserved 
in the stratified rocks. Therefore we are carried back to 
a period at which we cannot say there was life on the 
earth. And to this the earth's present interior condition 
bears evidence, that there was a time when no life could 
have existed on our globe. Liquid water is a constituent 
in all living things. And the earth so heated that water 
could exist only in a state of vapor, and still more re- 
motely when matter was so dispersed by heat that chem- 
ical affinity could not effect union of oxygen and hy- 
drogen to form and give properties to water, and perhaps 
the atomic elements could not take form from the cor- 
puscles, these probable states are utterly incompatible 
with any life. And if ' ' objects of sense exist only in the 
mind," there being no mind, there could be no geology, 
no earth until there was mind-sense, in which they could 
exist. It is difficult to deal by way of argument as by 
way of sense-evidence with persons who have religiously, 
i. e., emotionally, the God-idea as the most pronounced 
of all their convictions. For neither sense nor reason can 
oust this supreme and all sufficient idea which presents 
itself as a solace and a reason why, in every emergency. 
There are the most scientific and philosophic reasons why 
this or that religious dogma cannot be true, as we cannot 



27% THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

mouth, eat and drink, chew and swallow the very flesh 
and blood of Jesus Christ, in eating' and drinking the 
consecrated bread and wine. For the consecrating prayer 
does not directly or indirectly transsubstantiate these 
articles into the real flesh and blood of a person who has 
been dead for 1900 years, while the physical properties 
of the bread and wine, as tested by our senses, the only 
evidence by which we called them bread and wine before 
the consecrating prayer, remain the same after as before ; 
or that prayer to a conception — a mental image, or to an 
affirmation not mentally imaged, called a God, or the 
God, cannot give us the things we pray for • for instance, 
large and cheap crops to the consumer, and at the same 
time and place, large and dear crops to the producer; or 
recovery from fatal shots. (President Garfield). The 
unanswerable reply would be: "But God can do all 
things." In time of general drought, the public assem- 
ble and pray for rain, and if it soon rains, how can the 
vulgar religious "God has done it," be set aside? Only 
by general intelligence in the uniformity, sufficiency and 
necessity of natural cause and effect in all phenomena, 
rendering special providences incompatible therewith. 

Discussion 58. George Berkeley was Bishop of 
Cloyne and a stanch defender of the doctrines of the 
Christian Church. And he presented his idealism as a 
scheme of religious dogma, as an ever and everyAvhere 
active immaterialism, spiritualism and incorporealism, as 
a silencing argument against Atheism; a supernaturalism 
if there be a nature and a naturalism. And if not, then 
the whole world of experience and experiment, and o? 
scientific education, is a drift in delusion. For these 
methods of obtaining and verifying knowledge neither 
lead to, nor ground in, incorporeal idealism, but in cor- 
poreal and natural realism. His system is an absolute 
monistic supernaturalism. He idealizes all sensation 
and denies an objective substantive existence in itself 
subsisting independent of any mind perceiving or con- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 279 

ceiving it. Soul or spirit is the only substance. Horace 
Bushnell in his Nature and Supernatural, defines the 
supernatural (the word) as meaning- that which is not in 
the chain of natural cause and effect, or which acts upon 
the chain of cause and effect from without the chain. But 
this does not prove there is such an existence or such an 
operation. And delusion is defined as a false mental con- 
ception occasioned by an external object acting' upon the 
senses but not capable of correction or removal by ex- 
amination or reasoning. And illusion, as that which de- 
ceives, an unreal presentation to the bodily or mental 
eye. That a supernatural causation or prevention is in 
conflict with scientific verifiable knowledge, with neces- 
sary inferential assumption, self-evident and axiomatic, 
and universal sensible truths, and with all business rela- 
tions, needs no further showing than its allegation. To 
Berkeley the only things existing are spirits and ideas. 
And yet to him objects are as real as they seem to be to 
the senses. I shall quote from his "The Principles of Hu- 
man Knowledge," and from "The Three Dialogues Be- 
tween Hylas and Philonous'' as published by The Open 
Court Publishing Company, without further particular- 
izing. 

While no man ever asserted the existence of matter, 
real sense-perceived and sense-determined matter with 
stronger emphasis, no one ever denied the actual object- 
ive existence of matter more absolutely than Berkeley. 
"Assert the evidence of sense as high as you please, we 
are willing to do the same. That what I see, hear and 
feel doth exist, that is to say, is perceived by me, I no 
more doubt that I do my own being. I do not argue 
against the existence of any one thing that I can appre- 
hend either by sense or reflexion. That the things I see 
with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really 
exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose 
existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter 
or corporeal substance. And in doing this there is no 



280 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will 
never miss it. The Atheist will want the color of an 
empty name to support his impiety ; and the philosophers 
may possibly find they have lost a great handle for 
trifling or disputation. If by matter you understand that 
which is seen, felt, tasted and touched, then I say matter 
eixsts ; I am as firm a believer in its existence as any one 
can be, and herein I agree with the vulgar. If, on the 
contrary, you understand by matter that occult sub- 
stratum which is not seen, not felt, not tasted and not 
touched, — that of which the senses do not, cannot, inform 
you — then I say I believe not in the existence of matter,, 
and herein differ with the philosophers. I can as well 
doubt of my own being as of the being of those thing's 
which I actually perceive by sense, it being a manifest 
contradiction that any sensible object should be immedi- 
ately perceived by sight or touch, and at the same time 
have no existence in nature, since the very existence of 
an unthinking being consists in being perceived. It is 
not a sufficient evidence to me of the existence of this 
glove, that I see it and feel it and wear it. Do I not know 
this to be a real stone that I stand on, and that which I 
see before my eyes to be a real tree ? That a thing should 
be really perceived by my senses, and at the same time 
not really exist, is to me a plain contradiction. Wood, 
stones, fire, water, flesh, iron and the like things, which I 
name and discourse of are things that I know. But I do 
not see how the testimony of sense can be alleged as a 
proof of anything which is not perceived by sense. ' ' Like 
citations of affirmative allegations of the actual existence 
of matter in the vulgar sense might be greatly extended, 
but these will show how unequivocally if made by a 
writer of today after the radical distinction of subjective 
and objective has been developed and accepted as a real 
difference of thought and thing, of self and not self, they 
commit a writer to objective materialism. Eucken in 
his "Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 281 

Thought" says that the antithesis of subjective and ob- 
jective in their history of development has interchanged 
meanings. I find he remarks the first examples of the 
new meaning in IT 30; so we can say that they first enter 
upon their present usage with Kant, 1724-1804, Berkeley, 
1684 or 1685-1753. Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the 
Principles of Human Knowledge was first published in 
Dublin in 1710. So the contrasted distinction between 
subjective and objective in their present psychological 
and philosophical use may not have been clear and dis- 
tinct in the mind of Berkeley when he thought out his 
recorded utterances in the two publications mentioned 
above. For if a writer in the same book asserts unequivo- 
cally absolute idealism and absolute materialism, it would 
be held that he had flatly contradicted himself. And that 
Berkeley has emphatically affirmed the language of ob- 
jective corporeal existence in the vulgar meaning of 
sense apprehension and sense determination, and as em- 
phatically denied the objective existence of matter of it- 
self subsisting independent of any mind perceiving it, is 
evident from the following quotations : " It is an opinion 
strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, moun- 
tains, rivers and all sensible objects have an existence, 
natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the 
understanding. What are the fore-mentioned objects but 
the things we perceive by sense? and what do we per- 
ceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not 
repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of 
them exist unperceived ? " It is more convenient as well 
as being more distinctly pertinent and definitely pointed, 
to comment upon these quotations as I copy them, than 
to make any comments continuous after closing the quo- 
tations. 

I have already indicated that probably Berkeley did 
not realize in a psychological and philosophical discus- 
sion, the need of words that utterly distinguish between 
mind and matter, the ego from the non-ego, as now do 



282 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

the words subject and object, and their adjective forms, 
subjective and objective, for these words hardly appear 
in the English translation of the two words cited. Ham- 
ilton remarks in the ninth lecture of his Metaphysics, 
"Subject denotes the mind itself, and subjective, that 
which belongs to, or proceeds from, the thinking subject. 
Object, on the other hand, is a term for that about which 
the knowing subject is conversant; while objective means 
that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object 
known. The terms subjective and objective denote the 
primary distinctions in consciousness of self and not self, 
and this distinction involves the whole science of mind ; 
for this science is nothing more than a determination of 
the subjective and objective in themselves, and their 
mutual relations. The distinction is of paramount im- 
portance, and of infinite application, not only in Philoso- 
phy, but in Grammar, Rhetoric, Criticism, Ethics, Poli- 
tics, Jurisprudence and Theology. Subject and object 
mark out the fundamental and most thorough-going 
antithesis in philosophy. In this stage of your progress, 
gentlemen, it is not to make you aware of the paramount 
necessity of such a distinction, and of such terms, — or to 
show yon how, from the want of such words expressive of 
this primary antithesis, the mental philosophy of this 
country (Scotland) has been checked in its development, 
and involved in the utmost perplexity and misconcep- 
tion. To this defect in the language of his psychological 
analysis, is, in a great measure, to be attributed the con- 
fusion, not to say the errors of Reid, in the very cardinal 
point of his philosophy, a confusion so great that the 
whole tendency of his doctrine was misconceived by 
Brown." If the importance of this primary and thor- 
ough-going distinction and words to express it, in psycho- 
logical and philosophical discussion has not been over- 
drawn by Sir William Hamilton, and that it has not 
seems to be proven by the illustrative example given: 
that Thomas Reid, a noted Scottish philosopher and prin- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 283 

ciple founder of the Scottish School of Philosophy, and 
Professor of Philosophy at King's College, Aberdeen, 
and writer of a treatise on philosophy, so indeterminately 
expressed himself without adhering to the technical use 
of these terms, that Dr. Thomas Brown, 1778-1820, an- 
other Scottish philosopher almost as noted as Reid, ut- 
terly misconceived the real doctrine of Reid; how much 
more likely was there confusions in the mind and ex- 
pression of Berkeley without the use, and probably the 
clear and distinct antithetical conception of subject and 
object, which would explain his self-contradiction in his 
use of words, and leave wholly inconclusive his system of 
idealism as he has presented it. That Berkeley had no no- 
tion of the importance and signification of the terms sub- 
ject and object which they now assume in a definite and 
intelligible discussion of the physico-psychological uni- 
verse, may be gathered from a single passage, in his Prin- 
ciples of Human KnoAvledge, viz: "As to what philoso- 
phers say of subject and mode: for instance, in this 
proposition, 'a die is hard, extended and square' and 
they will have it that the word die denotes a subject or 
substance." Here sub 'sect means object, as now used, in 
such matters as Berkeley was discussing. And as used by 
Berkeley tends to prove the statement of Eucken, that in 
the course of centuries they (subject and object) have 
simply interchanged meanings. True, these words have 
various meanings in law, grammar, logic, etc. But besides 
these they have come to have another precise technical 
meaning in metaphysics, which saves indefiniteness and 
circumlocution. How would the mathematician, scientist, 
artist or tradesman, acquire or communicate information 
concerning matters he was engaged in, without technical 
terms of expression ? Development of intelligence can be 
obtained only through the clear and precise meaning of 
words, in the normal individual. "Since the objects of 
sense exist only in the mind," says Berkeley, "and with- 
out thought and are visibly inactive, there is nothing of 



284 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

power or agency involved. I choose to mark them by the 
word idea. Nothing exists but spirit and idea. If by mat- 
ter you understand that which is seen, felt, tasted and 
touched, then I say matter exists. I am as firm a believer 
in its existence as any one can be, and herein I agree 
with the vulgar. IE on the contrary you understand by 
matter that occult substratum which is not seen, not felt, 
not tasted and not touched, that of which the senses do 
not and cannot inform you, — then I say, I believe not in 
the existence of matter, and herein I differ with the phil- 
osophers, and agree with the vulgar." A more precise, 
unequivocal and untechnical description of matter as be- 
lieved in, and statement of what is not believed in., by the 
common people who take their normal senses as the best 
evidence of real objects and phenomena, and reject what 
is neither sensuous, nor physically, nor logically, nor of 
necessity inferable, nor inevitably a first postulate, could 
hardly be given by a pronounced materialist. But where 
is lodged this matter whose existence you accept with so 
much affirmative assertion of its real existence, good 
Bishop ? In the mind or spirit, of course, for sensuous ex- 
istence is wholly in its being perceived, for perceiving 
and objects perceived are in, and of, the substance of 
spirit, and where spirit is not there is nothing, and noth- 
ing can be perceived, and consequently exist. Then in 
parity of reasoning, both the act of perceiving and thing 
perceived, are spirit, and Hegel's position of identity of 
subject and object, emerges as consequent. But the vul- 
gar do not believe that matter exists in the mind as place 
or locus, but that it is external to mind and w r ould exist 
though unperceived and mind were not, — as real, object- 
ive, extended, figured and persistent as the universal his- 
tory of intelligence affirms it to be. And materialistic 
philosophers and all pragmatic workers w T ith matter and 
scientific investigators who can verify, and who believe 
in, natural cause and effect, without the intervention of 
mind and determining and directing factor, are classed 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 285 

with the vulgar. But this class does not contain idealistic 
philosophers of any stripe. And idealistic philosophers 
of every stripe, in their daily, practical lives ignore their 
philosophy. For all living things show by their lives, 
which imply less or more awareness or intelligence, that 
the world is as real, objective and persistent, and inde- 
pendent of themselves, as senses declare it to be. 

But ideas impressed on the senses, or sensations, are, 
nevertheless, real things, or do really exist. Says Berke- 
ley : ' ' Spirits are active, indivisible substances ; ideas are 
inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which subsist not of 
themselves, but exist in minds or spiritual substances." 
And how do these real material existences, get into minds 
or spiritual substances, human and animal? "I con- 
clude," says Berkeley, "that there is a Mind which af- 
fects me every moment with all the sensible impressions 
I perceive. The ideas imprinted on the senses by the 
Author of nature are called real things; and those excited 
in the imagination being less vivid and constant are more 
properly termed ideas, or images of things which they 
copy and represent. The visible ideas are the language 
whereby the Governing Spirit on whom we depend to in- 
form us what tangible ideas he is about to imprint upon 
us, in case we excite this or that motion in our own 
bodies." 

Idealism accepts much of what Berkeley contends 
for — the idealization of the material space and time uni- 
verse, and holds all existence to be psychical; that mat- 
ter has no such real objective, external, persistent exist- 
ence, when not perceived, as sense and science and in- 
ference and human daily affairs ascribe to it. "It is the 
very essence of the Kantian idealism," says E. Caird, in 
his philosophy of Kant, "that objects are not there till 
they are thought." 

Discussion 59. But religious idealism, as Descartes' 
and Berkele t y's and an immaterial psychology, that is, 
mind and mentation, are something apart from and not a 



286 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

part of, nor grounded in, or evolved out of, the material 
space and time universe, can afford no explicative phil- 
osophy of the universe. For its first principle is not the 
necessary assumption of positive existence and the in- 
evitable implication of its conditions — space and time, in 
which its very necessity of assumption is self -involved, 
and can be nothing else than the universe of which the 
feeling of the necessity of its assumption is part. But in- 
stead the material substantive universe, all the existence 
and phenomena of which we know or can know anything, 
is gratuitously assumed to be produced ideas, in some 
way, not given, deceptively introduced into our minds by 
an existence, not assumed of physical or logical necessity, 
nor in any way capable of proof and declared to tran- 
scend both space and time, and to be imminent in uni- 
versal positive existence and phenomena; or rather de- 
nies their real objective existence. But ideation or the 
formation or conception of ideas, as held by Berkeleyan 
idealism, is not the product of brain exercise under the 
stimulus of the real objects or the real truth of things 
presented, but the ideas, which have no counterpart of 
the real, are cast into consciousness by a foreign agency, 
an omnipotent spirit, of which no verifiable science treats 
or knows anything objectively as taught by Descartes, 
Leibnitz, Berkeley and Pearson, and many other teachers 
the world over. The universe covers the absolutely uni- 
versal, the All, from which no absolute particular of 
thought or thing can be excluded and be shown to be so. 
These assumptions of a religious idealism submit to no 
demonstrative experimentation. Nor is it possible to con- 
struct experiments capable of dealing with the extra uni- 
versal of space and time, or with the beyond of their uni- 
versal contents. The very verbiage impresses the convic- 
tion as involving absurdity. We suppose the unsupposa- 
ble and the unideal. The assumptions are not ideal, 
cannot be pictured, only verbal. How can one show that 
his ideas involve necessary creative existence lying be- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 2S7 

yoncl the domain of the laws of space and time, or that 
these verities were caused to be, or are mentally created, 
or that they have no validity as to material existence and 
phenomena except ideal, or that material existence and 
phenomena have no other reality than ideal, while intel- 
ligent life everywhere and always directly or indirectly 
proclaims the contrary ? How can one, who accepts with- 
out question as real Avhat his sense-intuitions declare and 
all physical science corroborates, and psychology neces- 
sarily implies, show that the creative existence he names 
exists, either transcendently or imminently, or both, if 
material existence as well as the verities of its condi- 
tions, are as real as they seem, or are simply ideas, and 
these latter are cast into the human organism for cogni- 
tion ? No such showing as demanded above appears to 
me possible, or sufficiently probable to reasonably create 
a declarative faith, when actual, real, quantitative exist- 
ence is a first and necessary affirmation. 

The remark made by Eucken that in the course of 
the centuries, subjective and objective have interchanged 
meanings, may be made concerning ideas. Plato's def- 
inition and construction of idea, the first historical devel- 
opment of the word, meant archetype, or models, or im- 
material patterns, after which all material objects were 
fashioned. Plato regarded ideas as entitive reals, while 
we, as taught by positive verifiable science hold sense ob- 
jects and the physical world as real, and ideas as mental 
images or pictures of the real. General notions or con- 
cepts were realities and causes of our sense perceptions 
with Plato, and with most idealists. Material objects 
that are presented to our senses and engage our daily 
lives in thought and effort in all kinds of business and 
pleasure, we regard as real existence, whereas the ideas 
of them which are the representations of their forms, 
properties, relations among themselves, and their func- 
tions, and are held latent in the memory as their retained 
likenesses, have no other existence than mental to be 



288 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

brought forth and re-presented to consciousness by 
reminiscence, which are finally to vanish perhaps, beyond 
our power to recall. And this is now the case with the 
great mass of all our past experiences. And what but 
memory is to join our present lives with the past, and to 
identify ourselves with our past? Only a few of the 
mountain peaks of our past history that impressed us 
most vividly, or somewhat strangely, or have had con- 
tinued conscious results, can now be discerned above the 
otherwise universal ocean of oblivion. And the peaks are 
sinking- and will become submerged. As this is a gradual 
process, and new ideas possess us we are becoming other 
than we were, from oblivion to oblivion. 

When we compare any number of men together or 
any other objects, we perceive or conceive, certain marks 
or characters that are similar. These are abstracted, 
classified and named, and become generalizations, but 
have no real existence apart from the individuals, only 
ideal. Scholastic realism of which Plato and the Pla- 
tonists of his day may be called the Fathers, held that 
general notions or the likenesses of property, or quality 
or other marks, which characterize groups of individual 
objects, are real existences apart from the individuals, 
that there exists man, horse, virtue, justice, beauty, 
goodness, etc., which is not any concrete man or horse, 
and are entities apart from any real objects which mani- 
fest qualities. The individuals of every kind partake of 
the ideal entities appropriate to them, and are subse- 
quent to them in point of time, and are formed after 
their likeness. Other philosophers held that this view of 
nature was not Realism, but Nominalism, a mere nam- 
ing of general properties or qualities that are alike or 
similar in groups of individual objects, and has no exist- 
ence apart from the individuals. This question was seri- 
ously and even violently debated in the middle ages, 
especially the twelfth century. But today where critical 
observation and exact science have guided thought and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER. 289 

^determined facts, realism expresses the doctrine of sensu- 
ous and implied physics as real existence. 

It was a fundamental principle with all the Greek 
-philosophers, and indeed has been and is today, of all 
Aryan philosophy, and of Semitic theology and religion, 
to assume one eternal and underived existence, from 
•which all else is derived. And it is inconceivable that 
.any other assumption can possibly be primal and neces- 
sary. On this nucleus of absolute truth which cannot be 
denied without involving the absurdity of denying all 
real existence whatever, or the equal absurdity of aver- 
ring that real existence can become without cause, or can 
be' its own cause of becoming, — all science and philosophy 
must stand as ultimate, and must take their start in in- 
vestigating- and classifying the various groups of the in- 
telligible, called the sciences, and philosophy must total- 
ize and harmonize the sciences, under the domination of 
this primal and necessary postulate of eternal substance 
forever changing in space and time orders as mode of 
existing. All changes whatever must be in time order, 
though they should not seem to involve space-order. 
Positive existence developes or evolves the consciousness 
of itself in, and by means of, the mechanics of material 
organisms, nature's own construction. I make this asser- 
tion, because it harmonizes with universal observation, 
nor can any other course be shown, nor can a super- 
natural be shown or conceived, nor is it a necessary af- 
firmation. Nature makes conscious her processes, their 
methods, their interrelations called cause and effect, 
antecedents and consequents, which are not at the same 
time both seed and fruit. Positive existence, local and 
general, changes its forms, but not its total quantity, and 
in these changes loses properties or what the older scien- 
tific writers called accidents, and takes on new forms 
and assuntes new relations to other things. This is seen 
in infinite variety in chemistry, biology and geology. 
Positive existence evolves derivative phenomena of all 



290 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

kinds from necessity of its nature, stimulated and min- 
istered to by the environment. All things are within and 
of the resources of nature. There is neither supernatural 
nor transcendental to this all embracing variety in the- 
one infinite universe. Inanimate nature works out her 
problems by the force and efficiency of her own necessary 
dynamic mechanical interrelations, and their native apti- 
tude for all possible products, even to the extent of pro- 
ducing animate and intelligent beings, without a previous 
devised plan or final cause, or an intelligent architect 
either exterior to, or within, but not of, nature. These 
intelligent beings by the help of their intelligence and 
their voluntary self-motion which has the power of mov- 
ing some other materials and to place them in certain re- 
lations to other materials, nature takes hold of them in 
her operations and the ends of intelligence may be met 
on a very limited scale, and nature imitated in what she 
does without intelligence; and not nature in her infinite 
range imitate one of her infinitesimal products. Eternal 
substantive existence being undevised and underived 
warrants such a statement, though far removed from the 
generally accepted cosmology. It is the a priori cos- 
mogony. It denies creation, the theological conception, 
and affirms the eternity of the substantive universe and 
its existing in continual changes of forms and their con- 
sequential obliteration and generation of properties. And 
among these life and intelligence. This view gives no 
countenance to the statement of Anaxagoras who, believ- 
ing in the eternity of matter, is reported to have saidr 
"All things were mixed up together, then Mind came 
and arranged them all in distinct order." There is a 
general and strong feeling that the universe of material- 
ity must have had a beginning, and nature's processes 
and products had a deviser, constructor, mover and di- 
rector, out of the realm of nature, or at any rate, not of 
nature. "Nature hath some director of infinite knowl- 
edge to guide her in all her ways." (Hooker, Ecclesi- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 291 

astical Polity.) To seriously meditate and reason is to 
philosophize. Auguste Comte's announced discovery of 
The Law of the Three States seems to be the verbal 
formulation of nature's method of evolving the con- 
sciousness of itself, viz : the theological or fictitious state, 
the metaphysical or abstract and the positive or scientific 
state. To be a little egotistic and to give a concrete ex- 
ample as one I can personally vouch for, I may say that 
I have been an intense theologian, and imagined God was 
behind as originator, and either directly or indirectly the 
cause and operator of all existence and phenomena, and a 
metaphysician, but have outgrown these two stages in 
reaching the age of eighty-five years. And I see nearly 
all my acquaintance still in the theological or fictitious 
state as to the cosmological conception, and the accept- 
ance of a providential care over a certain class of believ- 
ers in which themselves are included, but their opposers 
excluded, kept so by the constant reiteration of the 
clergy and the general superstitious regard for the Bible 
inherited from the past and fostered by social and edu- 
cational institutions. The law of the three states har- 
monizes with what we observe in the mental development 
of mankind. The great majority of the human race are 
still in the theological state. This is the childhood stage 
of intellectual development. All things are, and all 
phenomena transpire, according to the will of God. 
" Anything may happen. Nothing is impossible, nor is 
anything necessary. The will of God suffices for any- 
thing to happen or not to happen." What other view 
underlies our prayers? But careful observation and sci- 
entific tests show that nature vindicates its self-sufficien- 
cy for all its becomings without interference of Gods, 
many or one. But the strength and extent of the theo- 
logical superstition has only in general been modified, in 
Christendom, by its superior scientific intelligence to all 
other parts of the world. And the modification consists 
mainly in discarding a multiplicity of Gods, and con- 



292 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

centrating the sufficiency of the many upon one. The 
three stages of intellectual development are natural and 
universal according to Comte. He says: " According to 
the very nature of the human intellect every branch of 
our knowledge must necessarily pass successively in the 
course of its progressive development, through three dif- 
ferent theoretical states ; the theological or fictitious state, 
the metaphysical or abstract state, finally the scientific 
or positive state. " "In other words the human mind by 
its nature in its researches makes use successively of 
three methods of philosophizing. Hence we find three 
kinds of philosophies, or general systems of conceiving 
the totality of phenomena which mutually exclude each 
other. The first is the necessary starting-point of human 
intelligence, the third its fixed and final state ; the second 
is solely destined to serve as a transition." Comte calk 
'theology' a general system of conceptions concerning 
the universality of phenomena which explains the ap- 
pearance of these phenomena by the will of the Gods. 
Theological— that is to say, fictitious, supernatural, 
imaginary or mythological and arbitrary causation. 
Theology is synonymous with anthropomorphism in the 
conception of causes, as to the metaphysical mode of ex- 
plaining phenomena, in physics for example, the hypo- 
thesis of an ether to explain optical and electrical and in 
physiology the hypothesis of a vital principle, and to 
explain psychological phenomena, a soul. Comte would 
hold these hypotheses as metaphysical. The metaphysical 
or abstract. Comte says, at bottom is no other than the 
fictitious. But natural phenomena, better observed, are 
referred no longer to capricious wills, but to invariable 
laws. The positive is t!?.e scientific or verifiable state, 
or by necessary implication and logical and physical 
reasoning upon what is given to the senses, sustained by 
critical and prolon ged observation or experimentation. 
My authority for Comte 's views is derived from L. Levy 
Bruhl's The Philosophy of Auguste Comte. The theolog- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 293 

ical and of consequence religious, is the primitive and 
unrefiective attempt to interpret nature, or which is the 
same thing-, to answer questions that spontaneously arise 
in a thinking subject, as to the cause of things observed 
by the senses. This is part of folk-lore, the earliest effort 
at comprehensive reasoning. Man, at first, had no other 
source from which to take his bearings, or to take his 
premises, aud to draw his conclusions than his own con- 
scions achievements. The changes which he observed 
were effected by beings like himself, greater and 
more powerful, but by similar methods. The suggestion 
of greater than himself, was furnished by comparison of 
what he could do and his child could not. He had no 
other pragmatic model to think after than himself and 
the animals around him. This was his reasoning, his 
philosophizing. And the resulting objects reached from 
his premises were, of necessity superhuman beings or 
Gods, but man-like. M an must at first, have conceived all 
activities, as to cause, to be upon the same plane as his 
OAvn. His theology was only human and physical. "And 
the metaphysicians who profess to give an idea of God, 
the most consistent, according to Comte, are those who 
make a person of him." The theological is the meta- 
physical. 

We have before indicated how the persuasion of 
superhuman power and personalities were naturally 
reached, while human forms and methods were retained. 
It is difficult for man in his speculations to lose all traces 
of the human. As his intelligence advanced beyond the 
limits of childishness through a wider sense experience 
and a deeper reflection, and the tendency to inquire 
causally into events and sensible things was extended and 
intensified, the world as to its existence and changes 
came within the causal inquiry. The eternity of exist- 
ence is a much later suggestion. And you will surprise 
even now some persons who claim to have made some ad- 
vancement in learning, if you suggest to them that the 



294 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

material universe is eternal and uncaused. They will 
probably say: But all thing's must have a beginning. 
Nor will they see any possible exception until you ask : 
But is not your God who you say created the world, eter- 
nal and without beginning? To this they will assent, but 
show no special interest in the subject. As changes come 
within the constant and universal experience, beginnings 
or origins have become fixed impressions to the unlikely 
persuasion of any existence being eternal and without 
beginning. And the origin of Gods was entertained by 
the ancient Greeks as is shown by the Theogeny of 
Hesiod. (about TOO B. C.) 

Cause extended to the abiding substance of the uni- 
verse, the sum of all affirmable or even thinkable posi- 
tive existence, and we must go beyond the extent and 
content of the universe to find its cause. This is impossi- 
ble. And because we have reached the utmost limits of 
existence, the rebound calls a halt to the beginning of 
existence per se. And as we cannot get beyond the uni- 
verse for its creator, and if we make believe we do by the 
use of words, the field is open and the arbitrarily as- 
sumed liberty to posit a creator of the universe, the an- 
tagonist compels the rout for creator of creators regress- 
ively ad infinitum. And how will the asserter of the 
creator of the universe prevent it? For we cannot de- 
posit a thought or lodge a necessary affirmation of exist- 
ence beyond the universe, and know we are doing so. A 
more attentive and profound consideration of the uni- 
verse what it is, and we shall find there, all we are seek- 
ing after excej)t Deities and their deeds; ourselves., our 
cause, origin and destiny: all we have ever realized or 
ever shall : all that is without cause ; all cause and ef- 
fect ; all that knows or may or might know ; and all that 
is known or knowable; all that suffers or enjoys; all that 
dies and lives again, or lives and never dies; the false 
and the true, the good and bad, crime and virtue, their 
punishment and reward ; all that changes not and yet is 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 295 

■forever changing; the endearments and drawings of 
love, and the hideousness and repulsions of hate ; the 
was, the is and the shall be; all in ordered simultaneity 
or succession ; and all orderers. The world in itself is 
one, but its facets, the aspects, which hold our individ- 
ual lives, command our activities, solicit our attention, 
deceive our expectations, sometimes reward our efforts, 
and often bury our hopes unrealized. 

Reflecting on the creation of material existence, the 
meaning we seek to put into the word "create" — the 
coming to exist, to be something deposited in space and 
time that was not in space or time in any sense, the ab- 
solute and real origin of perdurable quantitive matter. 
The actual causal becoming of matter is not thinkable, 
therefore as a real intelligent thought-picture or idea, 
unutterable and an absolute word- gratuity, unless it be 
a necessary affirmation, which it is not. Tn what is un- 
thinkable, viz: creation of matter, we cannot intelligently 
or of necessity affirm the needed factor of intelligence, 
or any kind or degree of power that intelligence can see 
to be adequate to bring something (matter) out of noth- 
ing, since creation and matter have no intelligible rela- 
tion to each other as cause and effect, while we have 
nothing but a fictitious being to be the cause in opera- 
tion. Developed theism holds to the creation of matter, 
and declares its creator to be an immaterial personality. 
The unintelligibleness of the characterized actor fits weli 
the impossibility of the creative act. The personality 
is only verbal, and verbally dowered with the attributes 
of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. These 
are animal and human properties extended and intensi- 
fied beyond assignable limits. This means that the 
creator is anthropomorphic in his nature and attributes, 
because his creatures are, and they have no superior 
models than themselves enlarged and intensified. An 
immaterial personality is an unimaginable and not a 
necessary affirmable existence. Therefore an unpictur- 



296 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

able fictitious being, for it is not within the known or 
warrantably inferred fact of real objective existence. 
The qualities and power ascribed to a fictitious being 
still leaves the being a fiction. The two attributes of 
omnipresence and omnipotence characterize the universe r 
for certainly it is everywhere, and contains and exer- 
cises all power. And all that is known or knowable, or 
unknown and unknowable and all knowers make up the 
universe. 

Discussion 60. The God of the Hebrew Pentateuch 
with his exploits, was a towering anthropomorphism. 
The Hebrew tutelary God, whom the European nations 
and their descendants the world over have adopted, if 
they acknowledge any, was exclusively their tribes' God r 
and jealous of his peers' propagandism, which was con- 
tinually making proselytes, notwithstanding the miracu- 
lous aid rendered b}^ their tribal God. "Thou shalt 
have no other Gods before me." His claimed jurisdic- 
tion was not even Semitic in extent. And among the 
Gods he was superior and more powerful only in the 
physically miraculous. He outdid the Egyptian Gods 
in a set contest. But in their wars which he engaged 
the Hebrews to bring upon neighboring peoples, under 
promise of constant victory over them, he was not al- 
ways successful. ' ' And the Lord was with Judah, and 
he drove out the inhabitants of the mountains, but 
could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because 
they had chariots of iron." Judges 1-19. The warrior 
David, a man after the tribal God's own heart, in a 
moment of inspired enthusiasm exclaims: 'Blessed be 
the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war 
and my fingers to fight." It is intuitive in human na- 
ture to ideally exalt, praise, honor, adore, worship and 
ascribe attributes of high titles to superior intelligence 
and action. "A man was famous according as he had 
lifted axes upon the thick trees." "Nimrod began to be 
a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter be- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 297 

fore the Lord." (Bible). It is intimated in the Scrip- 
tures that Sampson's and David's muscular prowess 
was a divine endowment. And this is accepted as true, 
or at least taught by orthodox teachers at the seminaries 
and pulpits. But Hercules, a Greek hero, after his 
death, was ranked among the Gods. In his physical 
prowess the record makes him equal to Sampson and Dav- 
id, and in acquiring deific attributes he reached the 
acclaim of Jesus of Nazareth. Anthon's Classical Dic- 
tionary says that ' ' Hercules ' twelve public services were 
universally known. " How much was intended by this 
assertion, or how much is true, I will not stop to inquire. 
But the story is not likely to be more mythical than the 
stories of Sampson aud David and all others on which 
the Hebrew and Christian and indeed all other religions 
are founded. They are each valid only for its special 
devotees, and wholly invalid to establish any but its spe- 
cific religious faith. Not a miracle of either Testament 
was ever proven to have been done, or perhaps called in 
question, at the time it is claimed to have been done. We 
have no evidence that criticism of divine acts or of di- 
vine speech was conceived in the far off time when the 
miracles of the Old Testament or New Testament are 
claimed to have been done. For the Hebrew world was 
not much less immersed in the darkness of ignorance 
and superstition at the time of Jesus of Nazareth than 
when the Old Testament was imposed upon the people 
for historical truth. 

It is more consistent with reason and what we can 
learn, to lodge all actualities and all possibilities in the* 
material space and time universe, and identify this as 
the eternal and uncreated existence which of necessity 
must be the primal assumption, as we have before 
shown, than to postulate an eternal uncreated Being of 
whom we know nothing, not even that he is, nor need we 
from any necessary inference of what we know affirm 
that he is; nor can we adequately conceive a creation or 



298 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

creator of the universe; nor himself any less need of 
creation in order to be; nor the universe more impossi- 
ble of self -existing without beginning'; and self-produc- 
ing all that becomes and letting go all that ceases to be. 
and changing all that becomes different. And by so 
viewing the sum total of all we know, and know to be 
enduring, changing, producing, combining, dissolving, 
inanimate and animate, substance, thus avoiding the 
dilemma of avowing all worlds and atoms of matter to 
be brought into existence from non-existence, put into 
ordered positional relations, and set in related motions, 
and turning out infinitely varied phenomena to which 
substance, no beginning is known or can be assigned. 
And all this is alleged to be a created product out of 
nothing by an existence eternal and uncreated. Here 
is something well known and all that is and all 
that is known and inferable from it, attempted 
to be accounted for by something absolutely unknown 
and inconceivable, and need not be affirmed. Or at the 
failure of all rational attempts, as the inference of a 
creation, as Prof. Maxwell puts it: "We have reached 
the limit of our thinking faculties when we have admit- 
ted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-exist- 
ent, it must have been created." I have previously 
made this quotation from Prof. Maxwell, but recite the 
passage here for a somewhat different consideration. 

How is it known that matter cannot be of eternal 
duration, self-existent and self -ongoing, and the evolving 
source in nature's own sufficiency of all that becomes? 
as it is admitted on all hands that some existence must 
be postulated as eternal, self-existent and productive of 
all that becomes. And how is it so clear and manifest 
that there is some other existence known not to be com- 
prised in the universe, but not known by sense ; and not 
a necessary inference from a demonstrable fact ; not a 
necessary affirmation; not conceivable as creator of 
matter, nor is its creation conceivable, nor of needful 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 299 

averment. And by no possibility can the creation of 
matter be proven, nor a creator identified in the aspects 
ascribed to him. Then on what ground are we to believe 
in the real objective existence of a creator of matter and 
builder of the universe? On theism and religion. And 
on what do these assumptions and ascriptions rest? 
Man's desires and devices. Professor Maxwell admits 
that matter in itself considered may be what metaphy- 
sicians call necessary existence, and therefore what we 
claim it is. 

What prevented him from taking" this view wil! not 
here be considered further than to say, that probably 
his religious opinions were the chief if not the only rea- 
son for his objection to the eternity of matter. He has 
not specifically stated and developed any. But has said : 
"It is only when we contemplate, not matter in itself, 
but the forms in which it actually exists, that our minds 
find something on which it can lay hold." By this we 
understand that the Professor refers to what is called 
the order in creation, the design argument, the argument 
for a God inferred from the evident adaptations of 
things as secondary causes in the productions of effects; 
a predetermined plan, then a purposeful, coercive ma- 
nipulation of material changes in the accomplishment of 
the plan. That there is and must be the uncaused cause 
of all that is caused, never an effect not produced, not 
caused. A quantitative substance of infinite fullness, 
which of necessity must be assumed, presumed, granted, 
without further proof demanded or needed than the ne- 
cessity for it, felt by all developed human philosophic 
consciousness, is admitted alike by theists, pantheists 
and atheists. 

Quantitative substance, self -actuate, unbegun as 
time and as time forever enduring, of infinite fulness of 
actualities and of potentialities that ever shall become 
actual. Substance by virtue of quantitative endurance; 
and infinite fulness, because forever producing without 



300 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

loss or weariness. Unity that embraces all pluralities 
and all difference. When all this and not less is the 
primal and inevitable postulate that human intelligence 
intuitively finds certain, tha,t nature reveals of itself in 
becoming self-conscious. About which, not that it is (I 
mean nature or the universe, specifically quantitative 
substance) for that it is, ever has been and ever must be, 
is felt to be a necessitated certainty and not contingent 
all experience confirms, all thinking and action is concern- 
ed. With this view creation, and by consequence crea- 
tor, seems but an intrusive impertinence. There cannot 
have been an absolute and universal void. If so, it must 
have forever remained so. For self -creation, or begin- 
ning to exist without a p re-causative existence already, 
is absurd, self -contradictory, therefore impossible. The 
above inevitable postulate — eternal, uncaused, quantita- 
tive substantive existence, or first truth that underlies 
all other truths, except its own conditions of existing, 
w T hich cannot be thought not to have been eternally as 
they now are, not existences, but necessary conditions 
that verify all existence whatever. For if there be posi- 
tive existence, it must be somewhere at some time. I 
mean space and time are presupposed. This postulate 
defeats, or renders impossible the creation of an eternal, 
uncaused, quantitative, substantive existence. All that 
becomes must be involved in that which never became. 
And its creation or creator cannot be involved. If in- 
volved, whatever becomes must be evolved. No new 
possibilities of becoming can have been ingrafted into 
eternal substantive, functioning existence. What is not 
at any given time actual and present, and yet is to be 
consequential of what is, no matter how remote in time 
and space, is latent, imminent, involved, in what eter- 
nally has been. The essentials and now present causals 
effect their consequential results. And the results be- 
came partial causals. For a single effect requires many 
contributing causals. And though time is freighted with 






THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 301 

events, the freight of any two successive moments, in 
two infinitesimally near spaces, are not without a differ- 
ence. Hence, the tracing backward and broadly the 
causals of present products, end only in the given eter- 
nal, uncaused and universal self-operating as self-exist- 
ing substance. 

Uncaused and eternal existence must have all pos- 
sible modes of existing and changing and functioning 
that shall ever occur as eternal as itself, therefore with- 
out creation or creator. It must exist and change un- 
changed in quantity because it has forever so existed and 
changed, while undergoing ceaseless alterations in place 
and form. It must exist and change in space and time, 
and be subject to their orders of being. Perpetual change 
necessitates perpetual motion. No motion, no change. 
This authorizes the affirmation that motion is the eternal 
and universal mode of existing of positive and actual 
existence, and confirms the scientific induction that mat- 
ter is everywhere in motion. Space and time are mo- 
tionless, therefore without alteration ; then not substance 
nor its becomings. Then not psychic creations, all which 
are evolved becomings of substance. They are the most 
fundamental objective verities, and so the deepest sub- 
jective and philosophic pre-suppositions. And this is 
abundantly verified by the mathematics. These truths 
underlie all existence living and not living, and must be 
and are granted, if not otherwise, then by silent neces- 
sary implication. The unavoidable preconditions of 
thinking and what thinks, are not the effect of thinking 
its shadows as it were, and where thinking is not, then 
space and time and substantive existence, alike cease 
to be, and are thought into being and existence again ! 
(Kant). Space and time are inextinguishable and un- 
varying objective verities. Hence, subjective determin- 
ing and measuring validities. This I have virtually, if 
not in terms, said before, and may repeat. 

Discussion 61. Mind or intelligent action has not 



302 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

created matter, and given to it the exact orders of its in- 
terrelations, of forms, numbers, motions, qualities, prop- 
erties, life and consciousness, etc. All this is implicit 
or involved in the inevitable postulate of eternal quanti- 
tative substantive existence, and its necessary conditions. 
Facts to be known must precede the knowledge of them. 
And what is living and conscious, must die and cease to 
be conscious. These attributes of life and consciousness 
cannot be the cause of, or have created the subject to 
which they belong. The subject self, ego, or the I, is not 
matter per se. Nor is the subject a universal property 
of matter as is weight or gravitative attraction; but 
emerges or becomes as property, quality and function 
of the life that results from a certain chemical combina- 
tion of a few previous definite forms of the many forms 
of matter called atoms, advanced by a favoring environ- 
ment. What we mean by matter is the perdurable quan- 
titative substance as a deposit in space. And this in 
parts infinite in number and in space, extent, and in 
quantities infinitesimal and massive; moving, combining 
and dissolving, taking on and changing all becomings. 
These are self -evolved manifestations of the only known 
and knowing persistent substance. How in conflict is 
this with the popular theistic view: "We shall be able 
to discover that the body is scarce an essential part of 
man, and that the material perishing substance can never 
comprehend what is immaterial and perdurable." By 
confession then this is not a present knowledge but yet 
to be discovered. So are all theistic verities beyond the 
reach of proof. 

Space and time are immaterial and perdurable ver- 
ities. But they are not substantive existence in any 
proper definition of substance, which has motion and 
change, and may be living or not living. They are the 
where and when of substance and all its changes, the 
necessary presuppositions to the possibilitj' of substan- 
tive existence, and its phenomenal becomings. They are 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 303 

the ruling orders of all changes in the universe. No or- 
der or absolute disorder, is as impossible as the negation 
of space and time. As they are not created truths or 
had a beginning, so intelligent guidance in their appli- 
cation to events is impossible. That is, changes or events 
in the universe cannot be taken out of the domain of 
their orders by intelligent power. Scientific culture 
would not leave a person at liberty to say that chemical 
combinations, or the physiological and assimilative plac- 
ing, and the life-given qualities to dead matter in the 
growing body, or the piled-up desert sands by the wind, 
are disorderly aggregates of material particles where 
the orders of space and time have no application. Or 
that the elements of internal structures are placed in 
order by guiding intelligent purpose as final cause. In- 
telligibility, because of necessary and universal order, 
extends infinitely further than intelligence. The latter 
cannot be thought to be more extended than life. And 
life to the non-living, is as a tapeline measure to the 
immeasurable. 

So we may say, given, space and time and eternal 
quantitative substance in motions as universal and nec- 
essary mode of existing and all else follows as eon- 
sequqence. We have here nature or the universe epito- 
mized. Life and consciousness are as much involved and 
evolved products as "water or acidity. 

The present scientific outlook is that there is but 
one primal homogeneous elemental existence, called mat- 
ter or some other name, but which means what has eter- 
nally existed, does now exist and must eternally continue 
to exist, and is of course, a fixed quantity. And what 
appears to be many primary heterogeneous elements 
eternal or so created, and were universally held to'be so 
until -very recently, as iron, gold, oxygen, etc., and'their 
infinitely produced forms, states, qualities, uses, func- 
tions, etc., result from differential collocations and move- 
ments of the one homogeneous element. It follows then 



304 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

that the chemical elements with all their difference of 
kind, capacity for combining and grouping and function- 
ing, are only aggregated numbers more or fewer of dif- 
ferently collocated and moving units of the one homo- 
genous element. 

And having been produced by orderly integration — 
the mechanical placing of corpuscles or electrons by in- 
terrelating affinities executed by motion, are disintegrat- 
ing by a dissolving movement called radio-activity, and 
re-integrating most likely into something different. All 
nature, — the universe, except space and time, is chang- 
ing; because motion is the universal and necessary mode 
of existing. To exist is to act. This excludes space and 
time from being existences. They do not exist. They are 
conditions of all existence and action. Persistent forms 
of internal structure of similar selected groupings of 
matter with a compatible environment, continue essen- 
tial] y the same qualities and identity. Strange ! In the 
dawn of inquiry into the secrets of nature by the Greeks, 
they fixed upon four elements as the constituents of all 
things, earth, air, fire and water. And until recent time 
fire continued to be held as a substance existing through- 
out the universe, under the name of caloric. The posi- 
tions ascribed to the four elements were found to be un- 
tenable. And fire, or heat as the result of combustion — 
a chemical process, light, electricity and force, are 
shown to be not substantive existences, but to result 
from, to be matter in motion. Since the adolescence and 
growth of chemistry, the number of supposed unchange- 
able elements of which all things are composed, except 
the fancies of extreme idealism and theism and their 
kindred, have varied from time to time, but had reached 
the provisional number of 70 to 80. These have very sud- 
denly and unexpectedly dropped to one homogeneous 
substance. And the mechanical theory of the universe, — 
that all changes and becomings in their causes and effects 
are lodged in the eternal space and time interrelations 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 305 

of one uncaused substantive matter in infinite numerical 
subdivisions in motions, is confirmed. 

One new fact and consequences that follow, some- 
times require the readjustment of the entire stock of our 
stored up attainments to bring- harmony into the as- 
semblage. And this has obtained in the acquaintance 
with radium and its wonder-working. A very little, the 
fraction of a grain, gives off a continuous supply of heat, 
3°F. without itself growing colder or losing any appre- 
ciable weight, and this for years. Appreciable, that is, 
by any yet devised instruments of weighing sufficiently 
delicate. Some of its rays or parts of itself that pass 
away from other parts that remain, have such pene- 
trating power that they go through an inch thick of lead, 
and twelve inches of solid iron. This means that lead and 
iron are porous, and parts of radium are small enough 
"to go through them. Radium is capable of other won- 
ders, but we will not name them here. Heat is proven to 
be matter in motion. "In matter which is incandescent 
or white-hot, the molecules are vibrating at the rate of 
600 million million times a second." And as to the size 
of molecules, — * ' If a cubic inch of air were magnified to 
sixteen miles each way, the molecules would then be no 
more than one eighth of an inch apart ; and the number 
of collisions with one another in one second is nearly 500 
millions." And the subdivisions of matter extend still 
further, for molecules are compound bodies. So say the 
great mathematicians. 

Were it not for those ways of mechanically arrang- 
ing the signs composing the alphabet of characters which 
have such meanings as have been assigned to their forms 
and to their relative positions among themselves, and the 
skilled manipulating of the changes in their relative posi- 
tions, which discover the actual objective facts of nature 
in its forms, magnitudes, numbers, distances, directions, 
velocities^ weights, functions, etc., measuring all things 



306 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and conferring certainties, man would hardly be the su- 
preme animal. 

But nothing theistic can be measured into objective 
certainty. Not even that there is existing or ever was, a 
creative and world-directive and preserving, or a human- 
helping God. But. a devotee on reading about radium or 
other marvels of nature, would probably say: "Yes, all 
this is to the glory of God. Great and marvelous is his 
handiwork ! ' ' Where is the proof that there is any ex- 
istence or agency that transcends the existence and pow- 
ers of the universe ? Is its creator, or is imminent there- 
in but not of, the universe? Or that the objective ma- 
terial universe is a created thing? So far as I know the 
initial and final proof in Christendom to those who pro- 
fess to believe it, is the Bible ; too puerile a proof to merit 
attention, although held by thousands to be sufficient, 
among them some learned persons. If there be proffered 
what some call the evidence that nature itself furnishes 
in proof of its dependence, it is no more than assertive 
denials that nature or the universe of matter in motions 
as eternal manner of existing, could have always existed; 
and that in and of itself it is incompetent for all its man- 
ifestations. No proof of these assertions is or can be 
given but the unwarranted inference of nature's incom- 
petence. And how little of nature is known from which 
to legitimate the inference. And no proof of a creative 
being but the said inference objectified into a word and 
the word charged with creating and working in and 
through all matter of phenomena. We do not admit that 
science gives any sanction to the inference of a real ex- 
istence possessing the qualities and powers ascribed to 
the word God, or the possibility of an absolute creation of 
the material universe, or that nature is not competent to 
all its manifestations. If the existence about which all we 
know concerns, and we know is constantly changing into 
all the functional becomings of which we know anything, 
and that without discovering any director or assistant 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 307 

that is not natural, or is supernatural, can we infer that 
some thought we have imagined and given a name to and 
know no more ; or somebody has mistaken their own sub- 
jective fancies for objective existence ; or religiously pro- 
claimed what was false, whether consciously or uncon- 
sciously, and found followers, is real objective existence, 
and is competent to, and does produce all manifested 
phenomena? If so, whence its or his existence, powers 
and competency ? 

Matter shows no signs of not having 1 always existed 
or of having begun to exist. Is it not trivial to maintain 
that there can be declarative evidence to set aside the 
negative testimony of nature and establish the creation 
of matter? What science has to say and what she can 
not say relative to matter, favors its eternal existence and 
its necessary potency and sufficiency for all its present 
and successive forms and functions, including the con- 
sciousness of itself and workings in forms called person- 
alities. Its most fundamental known property is its per- 
sistence in space in quantities ranging through an in- 
determinate number of forms mutually interchangeable, 
by means of motion which is force or energy as its eter- 
nal mode of existing; and which forms have their more 
or less specific qualities and functions. The most com- 
prehensive generalization which science has reached is 
the unchanging quantities of matter and energy, which 
is the "doctrine of the conservation of energy, which 
corresponds to the persistent quantity of matter. ' ' There 
are no recognized scientific indications that there is one 
or are many supernatural agencies, personal or other- 
wise, imminent in matter or transcendent thereto, co- 
ercive and directive of motions and determining all pro- 
cesses and results either directly, continually and univer- 
sally, or indirectly by having endowed matter and its 
motions with laws or relations by which all changes of 
material forms and their functions, and events, are work- 
ed out bv these laws. 



308 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Dr. W. Hampson, M. A., Open Scholar of Trinity 
College, Oxford, Lecturer under the London. County 
Council at University College, London, Inventor of the 
Hampson Air-Liquefier and Author of a small but very 
interesting work, entitled "Radium Explained" from 
which I am drawing largely, makes nine forms of material 
existence from corpuscles to sun and nebular masses and 
their corresponding functions. Matter, or the substance of 
the universe, is everywhere in etxernal forms and internal 
structures. This whole of matter is divided into enor- 
mous groups of substance, the stellar and nebular sys- 
tems, separated from each other and from us by such im- 
measurable distances that, though probably in rapid mo- 
tion, no glass yet devised can render the motion visible. 
It is said, however, that there is reason to believe there 
has been historic time sufficient for an observable change, 
the relative positions of the stars in the constellation 
known as the Great Bear, appreciable to our telescopes. 
For the stars composing it are not now in the same rela- 
tive positions as platted by Ptolemy nearly 2000 years 
ago. Sir William Herschel found that our sun with the 
whole solar system, is moving at the rate of five and a 
half miles a second towards a spot in the sky where we 
now see the constellation Hercules. Another star charted 
as 61 Cygni, is moving at the rate of 30 miles a second. 
Another star known as 1830 Groombridge, has a speed of 
200 miles a second. And the shape of some nebulae indi- 
cates movement in their component parts. So that in stel- 
lar and nebular systems we find the two principles of sub- 
division and movement of parts within the system. Astro- 
nomers have found by the aid of powerful telescopes that 
the universe of matter is of immeasurable space extent ; 
that the sweep of the most powerful glasses discovers no 
limits of star systems. And physics as now understood 
permit of no assignable limits to the extent of matter, 
with the continuance of the present universal order of ex- 
istence. As the physics of gravitation are now recognized, 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 309 

would not the outermost pull of gravity abolished be- 
cause the external limits of matter were reached, land all 
matter in a central heap ? 

Can we hold without stultification, not only that 
there can be creation of something out of nothing, but 
that there can be productive creation of real concrete 
substance, within a given limited time of beginning and 
ceasing to create, that shall extend the product over the 
limitless extent of space ? We cannot avoid averring that 
space is limitless, nor speak of matter without the impli- 
cation of space, and space as external to ourselves as mat- 
ter is, and as real, but not a substance. Nor can we allege 
the creation or production of space, or its limitation with- 
out discovering childish inability to think, or religious 
fanaticism. 

Discussion 62. Are the statements concerning the 
universe in the two God-revealed Testaments consistent 
with the revelations of the telescope and the microscope ? 
Were the unnumbered millions of star-systems and what 
they signify when compared with this world, and in view 
of their creation, in the mind either of the revelator or 
of him to whom the revelation was made ; or had either 
ever heard of, or had the remotest suspicion of the possi- 
bility of such distances or existences, when it was said : 
Tn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
And God made two great lights, the greater to rule the 
day and the lesser to rule the night. He made the stars 
also? And in the other Testament : In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word 
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All 
things were made by him. He was in the world and the 
world was made by him? Theologians of all orthodox 
Christian schools hold that the Word and the words ' ' He 
and "him" in the last sentence quoted mean Jesus Christ 
of Nazareth. He is declared to be the maker of all things, 
and specifically, the world in which he then was. With 
these statements think of the innumerable orbs, many of 



310 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

them immensely larger than our sun, so distant from us 
that the farthest reaching telescopes descry as minute 
points of light, from which their light (for they must be 
self-luminous, and if they have attendant planets like 
our sun as analogy would lead us to infer, they could not 
be seen) traveling at the rate of 184,000 miles a second, 
would require thousands of years to reach us ; were cre- 
ated from nothing, made, set in orderly positions among 
themselves, coerced into related motions that differ in 
effective action from the achievement of an inch in cen- 
turies, to thousands of miles in a second, — all produced 
by, presided over, imminent in everything, and held and 
holds in his omniscience all things and events from eter- 
nity to eternity, the power and wisdom that created and 
runs the universe, Jesus of Nazareth? a carpenter by 
trade, born of Mary, a Jewess, and who, for some ex- 
pressions against the superstition and hypocrisy, i. e., 
against the religion of his countrymen, w r as arrested, 
tried, condemned and crucified, on the charge of calling 
himself the King of the Jews. 

I do not hold Jesus to be the author of all the say- 
ings or the doer of all the deeds accredited to him in the 
New Testament. The record is a made-up tale after the 
death of Jesus, by those who had too little critical intelli- 
gence to sift the circumstances if they cared to discrim- 
inate the true from the false. But they and the country, 
and the time in which they lived, were too ignorant of 
nature's fixed methods to know that really dead men do 
not come to life ; nor thousands of hungry people feed 
and fill themselves with five loaves of bread and two fish- 
es such as a family might carry on a little outing. Nor a 
green and flourishing fruit tree wither and die because a 
hungry man goes to it for fruit out of season for fruit- 
gathering, and in a pique says to the tree: "Let no fruit 
grow on thee henceforward forever." Nor do virgin 
ladies bear children unless impregnated by a male of 
their own species. And so with the rest of the stories for 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 311 

the nursery, when the childish world had not advanced 
to the idea of the impossible, and knew no reason why 
one thing might not happen as well as another, when all 
things were possible and equally probable with the Gods 
or God, and knew not why human testimony could not 
prove one thing as well as another. And so it would 
w T here dreams and voices without bodies, and visions and 
olivine calls, and subjective impressions, and wild reveries 
of the hysterica], are given and received in the com- 
munity as satisfactory proof of the objective verity of 
what they purport to discover. And such I believe to 
have been the state of the society that produced and han- 
dled the literary gatherings called the Bible, in all the 
theistic and religious matters that are of interest to us, 
except those portions of said Bible that are deliberate fic- 
tions. And the like is the origin of every theism extant 
or extinct. 

If children believe such tales, or adults did so be- 
lieve at that day when the intellectual world was in its 
swaddling clothes, it should not surprise us. But when 
men to-day accept these monstrous libels against the in- 
tegrity and self-mastery of nature on the testimony of 
witnesses clearly incompetent from lack of knowledge, it 
should surprise us. And this is shown when they say 
that God, cr the Lord spake unto Moses, or that Moses 
saw his backsides, meaning God that created the worlds; 
or that the heaven and earth were created. Or that a be- 
ing clearly human was also the very God that had created 
the world; that this being was born of a human virgin 
mother, and was the father of himself, or was one of a 
trinity of Gods and the trinity was of one God-substance. 
'"So the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy 
Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one 
God." He created his mother, for "He made all things, 
and without him was not anything made that w r as made." 
The like testimony now of their neighbors, their sisters, 
wives or daughters, to prove like things, on the ground of 



312 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

a divine revelation through a prophetic announcement 
of a virginal conception and birth and Holy Ghost fath- 
ering, and a baby born half God and half human, (the 
denouement being the baby) the very God that cre- 
ated all worlds and all things. And so the inauguration 
and establishment of a theism and a religion; after 
1 ' These things were done that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by the prophet. ' ' All based on the testimony 
of a people that we have no evidence of any cross-examin- 
ation of those who had strange stories to tell, and at an 
age before the birth of what we know as scientific veri- 
fiable knowledge, or criticised testimony, reposing on di- 
vine and angelic utterances evidenced by mythic voices, 
visions and dreams, which, current and authoritative in 
that day, but at this day are wholly out of date and out 
of fashion, and would not prove before a court of in- 
quiry, even, that a black child born of a white mother 
had a white father. Men, learned in the fixedness, the 
uniformity and integrity of the natural relations of 
cause and effect, and the stability of the present order 
of things not only for 2000 years, but traceable through 
millions and millions of years in the past, or as long as 
one cares to take the testimony of nature, would not 
listen to such evidence to create and establish a theism, 
and a religion as has created and established the theism 
and religion they accept and support. It is not what men 
know that has founded any theism or religion, but their 
ignorance, what they desire or fear. And their desires 
and fears have generated their faith. 

Discussion 63. Christian Apologetics is defined as 
the defense and vindication of Christianity as the per- 
fect religion of God, for all mankind against the attacks 
of infidelity. (Schaff) And according to T. M. Lindsey, 
D. D., Encyclopaedia Britannica, Article, Apologetics, it 
is that part of theology which vindicates the right of the- 
ology in general, and of Christian theology in particular, 
to exist as a science, and is occasioned by the presence ox 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 313 

anti-theological and anti-Christian speculation. Apologet- 
ics is therefore the scientific representation of the ground 
on which Christian theology rests and may be vindicated. 
It is the historical consequent of Christian dogmatics. The 
author last quoted declares there is a theology in general, 
besides the particular Christian theology. The polythe- 
ism of the Greeks and Romans, of Scandinavia and Mex- 
ico, even the fetichism and animism of the last developed 
of the human kind must be included in theology in gen- 
eral and have its right to exist and its apologetics would 
be its scientific vindication of its right for these earlier 
stages and progenitors of modern monotheism and Chris- 
tian theism. As we do not know in what precise mean- 
ing the author used the words: "right to exist" we can- 
not criticize the expression. But as theology in its later 
stages has no better ground of facts to rest on and could 
be scientifically vindicated than in its earlier stages when 
"All mysteries of nature were explained by the action of 
spirits, and among the innumerable spirits on earth and 
in the sky, a few were raised to the rank of Great Gods. ' ' 
Modern theology has ignored, or concentrated, or incor- 
porated, the many Gods of earlier ages into a trinity or 
unity. But the three or one do what the many did. It 
becomes a question on what right theology in general or 
particular, has the right to exist, as it cannot be and 
never has been scientifically vindicated. That is, it never 
had an objective existence that ever was or could be sci- 
entifically defended. For the final test, and ground, and 
need, for the assumption or proof of the existence of a 
God, is to account for the universe and its ongoings. By 
no possibility can it be, or was it ever scientifically 
shown, or of necessity, or from analogy of reasoning in- 
ferred, that the universe or an atom of matter was ever 
created. "Absolute beginnings are beyond the paie of 
science." And I suppose it will not be contended that a 
divine revelation and the miraculous, come under the 
purview and vindication of science, i. e., that they follow 



314 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

scientific methods and are open to the scientific conscous- 
ness. And in this case absolute beginning* of the universe 
is beyond the intellectual need of assumption. For the 
primal and necessary assumption is eternal and uncre- 
ated existence. And this renders needless and even ab- 
surd the notional apprehension of a creation and of con- 
sequence a creator. And modern theism is as conjectural 
and subjective and destitute of real objectivity to be sci- 
entifically defended and vindicated as its ancestral 
fetichism and polytheism. 

Cardinal Newman said that theology properly and 
directly deals with notional apprehension; religion with 
imagination. As God is not now, and confessedly by the 
educated Christian theologian, never has been a sensible 
object, but a notional apprehension. And very likely 
whatever was apprehended as the notion would not be in- 
sisted upon as God, as God really is. Consequently those 
statements in the divinely and plenary inspired Bible, 
that directly and indirectly declare his visible and audi- 
ble anthropomorphic and monstrous presence to Moses 
and others are fictions. As God is a notional apprehen- 
sion scientifically and even verbally indefinable, as to 
form, character, whereabouts, or conceptually, with ob- 
jective proof of accuracy, there is infinite difficulty in 
showing there is any real objective existence correspond- 
ing in any respect to a notional apprehension, or that 
there is a real or intellectual need of such allegation. Or 
that the proposition of a divine existence is a verity or 
truth, except it is axiomatic, or self-evident, or a neces- 
sary implication, because the absolute creation of the 
universe is self-evident, or has been historically proven, 
or his personality as a sensible object is as much in proof 
to us, as that of George Washington or Napoleon Bona- 
parte. "The manifestation of God in the world" says 
Dr. Lindsey, "is miracle, and the apprehension of it, is 
inspiration." Science ignores miracle and inspiration. 
Thev have never been submitted to that test. And if 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 315 

they should be with success, it would be in proof that 
they were not miraculous. No human testimony can 
prove a miracle. It can only prove the ignorance of 
the testifier. Would it not have been as easy in the time 
cf Homer and Hesiod to prove the objective and notional 
existence and deeds of Zeus when no one called his ex- 
istence and deeds in question, as in the time of Moses 
and later, to prove the objective and notional existence 
and deeds of Jehovah, when no Hebrew called his ex- 
istence and deeds in question ? The two Gods have come 
down to us with like quantitative and qualitative testi- 
mony in proof of existence, creative and miraculous 
power. The records of Zeus and the theogeny of Gods 
from him have not been set aside by formal proof of 
their falsity any more than those of Jehovah and the 
theogeny of Gods from him. There was sufficient direct 
testimony to prove the existence of either God, if testi- 
mony could prove such existence really objective, or such 
records really true. Zeus and his records have gone out 
of fashion as true, and so into fiction, and have become 
literature. A new scion, but of the same common Zeus 
and Jehovah species, has been engrafted into the old He- 
brew stump, by the posterity of the patrons of 
Zeus, by adding a needful element which was lacking 
in the Jehovah scheme, the Theotocos, God-bearing, or 
Mother of God. It was never adopted to any extent by 
the original adherents of Jehovah. And this new ele- 
ment of explanation of how a creative and miracle 
Avorking God is produced, viz: the human way, through 
humanity, serves to give divinity to man and humanity 
to God, and is the perpetuating feature of the present 
triumphant theology. But it is really the triumph of 
Zeus and the defeat of Jehovah. I think it was Henry 
Ward Beecher who said : ' ' Jesus is the Christian 's God. ' ' 
The notional or ideal apprehension of God to the denial 
of his sensible manlike existence is anti-Biblical and 
eliminates all definiteness of conception and teaching of 



316 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

what God is, and of consequence, that he is. There can 
be no scientific natural theology or inferential theism, 
because science puts us under no natural or logical ne- 
cessity to affirm the universe began to exist, and so must 
needs have a creator, or that motion began in a motion- 
less universe and therefore must have a starter and a 
continual actuator beyond and other and apart from the 
universe. As Bishop Pearson says in his Exposition of 
the Creed: "I have presupposed all things distinct from 
him to have been produced out of nothing by him, and 
consequently, to be posterior, not only to the motion, but 
the actuation of his will. ' ' This ' ' presupposition ' ' is no- 
tional, is gratuitous and arbitrary, not a necessary im- 
plication from anything we know, nor by any possibility 
can prove. As there is known to be sensible, concrete, 
quantitative material existence, then by implication, or 
''presupposition" there must be space. This is a natur- 
al, logical and inevitable inference. But because there 
is a sensible material universe that no glass can limit in 
vastness or minuteness, does it follow of necessity or, of 
reason, or from analogy of any thing we know, that it 
must have been created, then, of course, a creator. For 
it may be, and much more likely is, eternal and uncreat- 
ed in its quantitative substance, and possesses in and of 
itself all the reason and all the power for all its changes 
and becomings, than it is a created thing from nothing, 
a figment of the human brain. Nor is it any proof of 
either creation or creator, that somebody, thousands of 
years ago said : ' ' God created the heaven and the earth, ' ' 
and "All things were made by him." Nor any more 
evidence of it than would these expressions if uttered 
for the first time and by some of our neighbors, or if 
found in the Koran or the Book of Mormon. It is a re- 
ligious dogma, and not a provable historical objective 
fact, as it purports to be and is believed to be. Nor can 
the millions of beliefs in the truths of these words, or 
the good and evil accomplished by religions founded on 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 317 

belief of a creative God, (and they both have been very 
great) or religions consolation and hope, take the literal 
falsity out of these words and render them probable or 
even possible, by way of proof. 

What we sincerely and dogmatically believe to the 
controlling of our lives is rendered efficacious by our 
faith, and not by its objective verity. It is on this 
ground that all theistic religions make their converts. 
No theory of the creation of something out of nothing 
has ever been constructed or attempted, so far as I know. 
That is, an intelligible conception or account of hmv 
creation of the material space and time universe was 
produced, with the adequateness of the method to the 
result; or an intelligible view of the sufficiency of the 
cause named to the effect. It is easy enough to say, God 
could do it, or the creation was effected by the fiat of 
the Almighty. This verbiage conveys no proof of the 
creation, nor that there was or is an Almighty to create, 
nor that his fiat could create the material space and time 
universe; not more proof or evidence of it, because vir- 
tually said thousands of years ago, than if uttered for 
the first time to-day. In saying this, of course, I deny 
all divine revelation, inspiration, illumination, prophet- 
ism, etc., as real, genuine, proven facts, and hold their 
pretensions as objectively baseless religious dogmas, 
which faith in them makes true and real to the believer. 

Discussion 64. A scientific view of the universe does 
not warrant the deduction of its creation, or of its cre- 
ator, or the absolute origin of matter, or that God evolv- 
ed the universe out of himself, as was argued by Sir 
William Hamilton. Consequently, Christian theology 
which presupposes as most fundamental to it, a creator 
and the creation of the uni verse, and without this object- 
ive and real truth, no tlieos nor theology has an actual 
and real foot to stand upon. And whether false or true 
Christian theology cannot be scientifically defended nor 
vindicated. If false, this will be allowed by all. If the 



318 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

manifestation of God is miracle, and the special appre- 
hension of it, is inspiration, when the miracle is proven 
and God is recognized by the methods of science, miracle 
ceases to be miracle and God becomes a scientific object, 
as is universal gravitation. For what can be proven by 
scientific methods the miraculous is thereby eliminated. 
Science is concerned about the natural and knows no 
supernatural. It rests on fundamental principles self- 
evident or demonstrable, and on facts of sensible obser- 
vation, or verification by experimentation, and all its ex- 
planations must be rational. Or, if it deal with the sci- 
entific consciousness as the forestalling guide to discov- 
ery, and declare a theoretical cause of a known phenom- 
enon, it must give its idea a concrete or a dialectical con- 
struction; and show how such a cause would produce 
the phenomenon in question ; and if practicable, proceed 
to prove it, as did Franklin and Marconi. Or to render 
the theory probable, show that analogous causation has 
produced similar effects. But to show, as would be easy, 
that all theistic claims are similar in their origin in the 
common nature of man, in his tendency to seek ultimate 
cause for all his senses discover, and in this achieve- 
ment there comes the like satisfaction, mental exalta- 
tion, even ecstatic emotion, like strength of persuasion 
and of conviction that he has it in his God whether Je- 
hovah, Zeus or Jesus, is to defeat the exclusive 
pretensions of the Christian and any other theology from 
being the only true one. And theology common to an- 
imism, polytheism, Jehovahism and Christianism, is to 
defeat all satisfactory theism to the cultured naturalist. 
Dr. Lindsey admits that an "Historical study of re- 
ligions shows that every religion has professed to be 
founded upon a divine revelation, and claims for itself 
the same supernatural sanction which the Christian the- 
ologian declares to be the exclusive possession of Chris- 
tianity. ' ' This exclusive and even common theistic claim 
cannot be defended. For like every such claim it lacks 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 319 

verifiable proof, and shares that which is common to all 
theistic beliefs, faith in its particular theism. An appeal 
to what the various theistic religions have accomplished 
disproves the Christian claim not only, but the influence 
of any real extrinsic theos as underlying and promoting 
any religion. For the theism of Jews modified by Gen- 
tiles and called Christian, had been equaled if not sur- 
passed along its own lines of moral and even ceremonial 
achievement, 500 years before the birth of Jesus, by the 
atheistic ethics of Gotama and his disciples, shows the 
whole matter of Gods, devils and religions to be a sub- 
jective natural, early human, inferential deposit and out- 
growth from man 's desire to know the ultimate cause of 
his experiences, and his disposition to suppress that 
w T hieh makes for evil, and promote that which tends to 
well-being. And so we learn the origin of evil spirits, 
demons, and finally devil, and good spirits, angels, Gods 
and at last one Supreme God. 

The parallel lines along which theistic Christianity 
and atheistic Buddhism have traveled even to the use of 
the same terms and symbols to express common results 
reached by starting from extreme opposites, in internal 
emotions and external effects, are very striking, and to 
the defeat of objective theism. For if atheism to the de- 
nial of all theistic existence, power and influence finds 
"The most Excellent Way," to restrain wrong-doing and 
the desire for it, to uplift the thoughts, purify the heart 
from lustful desires and the hands from crime, do away 
with wars, condole with the bereaved, declare the univer- 
sal brotherhood of man, and work for universal peace, 
and show mercy and love to all sentient nature as did 
atheistic Buddhism — Gods and theism appear in their 
true light, as wholly subjective — our own creations, and 
destitute of all real objectivity. It is amazing how much 
of our image-making is attributed to supernatural agen- 
cy. The whole theistic and demonistic world belongs to 
this class. The insane asylums are full of it. And much 



320 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

that belongs to common daily life partakes of it. How 
often do we hear the words "God willing." "If provi- 
dence permit." A United States Senator in the Senate 
chamber is reported to have said, the other day: "I am 
a firm believer in the intervention of Divine Providence 
in the affairs of men." How criminal has been this re- 
ligious superstition of divine and demoniac "interven- 
tion in the affairs of men." Witchcraft, magic, sorcery 
and heresy, and their priestly ordered remedies, burn- 
ings and hangings, prevailed for centuries over Europe. 
"For more than 1500 years," says Lecky in his Ration- 
alism in Europe, "it was universally believed that the 
Bible established in the clearest manner, the reality of 
the crime, and that an amount of evidence, so varied and 
so ample as to preclude the very possibility of doubt, at- 
tested its continuance and its prevalence. The clergy de- 
nounced it with all the emphasis of authority. The legis- 
lators of almost every Christian land enacted laws for its- 
punishment. Acute judges, whose lives were spent in 
sifting evidence, investigated the question on countless 
occasions, and condemned the accused. Tens of thous- 
ands of victims perished by the most agonizing and pro- 
longed torments, without exciting the faintest compas- 
sion. In almost every province of Germany, but especial- 
ly in those where clergical influence predominated, the 
persecution raged, with fearful intensity. Seven thous- 
and victims are said to have been burned at Treves, six 
hundred by a single bishop of Bamberg, and eight hun- 
dred in a single year in the Bishopric of Wurtzburg. This 
long series of persecutions extended over almost every 
Christian country, and continued for centuries with un- 
abated fury. The Church of Rome proclaimed in every 
way that was in her power the reality and the continued 
existence of the crime. She taught by all her organs that 
to spare a witch was a direct insult to the Almighty, and 
to her ceaseless exertions is to be attributed by far the 
greater proportion of the blood that was shed. Almost 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER. 321 

all the great works that were written in favor of the exe- 
cutions were written by ecclesiastics. Ecclesiastical tri- 
bunals condemned thousands to death, and countless 
bishops exerted all their influence to multiply the vic- 
tims. And the persecutions that raged through Europe 
were supported by the whole stress of the infallibility of 
the Church. But on this ground the Reformers had to 
conflict with their opponents. The credulity of Luther, 
manifested on all matters connected with diabolical in- 
tervention was amazing, even for his age. 'I would have 
no compassion on these witches,' he said, 'I would burn 
them all.' No feature was more clearly marked in the 
character of Luther than an intense sense of sin. He has 
-declared how, in the seclusion of the monastery, the gates 
of hell seemed to open beneath his feet, and the sense of 
liopeless wretchedness made life a burden. Like many an- 
other person of vivid imagination perplexed with re- 
ligious difficulties, a theological atmosphere was formed 
about him, and became the medium through which every 
event was contemplated and colored. He was subject to 
strange hallucinations which he invariably attributed to 
the direct action of Satan. Satan became the predomi- 
nating conception of his life. The devil often appeared 
to his vision and his audition. He threw an ink-bottle at 
the devil in the castle of Wartburg. Every form of dis- 
ease might be produced by Satan or by his agents, the 
witches, and none of the infirmities to which Luther was 
liable were natural, but his ear-ache was peculiarly dia- 
bolical. Hail, thunder, plagues, are all the direct conse- 
quences of the intervention of spirits. The devil could 
oeget children, and Luther had come in contact with one 
t>f them. And Luther earnestly recommended the reput- 
ed relatives to throw the child into the river, in order to 
free their house from the presence of the devil. Witch- 
craft did not present the slightest improbability to him, 
and he continually asserted the existence and frequency 
of the crime and proclaimed the duty of burning the 



322 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

witches. The popular belief asserted the existence of 
witchcraft. One of the most ordinary operations of the 
witch, the devil acting at her command, was to cause 
tempests which, it was said, often destroyed the crops of 
a single person, leaving the country around in extreme 
drought. If any one suggested doubt that Satan possess- 
ed such power or exercised it, he was speedily silenced by 
a precedent out of the Bible of supreme authority, which 
no one dared or was inclined to dispute. We read that 
the devil, by the permission of God, afflicted Job and 
among the means used was a tempest which destroyed the 
house and his sons and daughters wherein they were 
feasting. And the same infallible authority and prece- 
dent would give the devil, through the witches and evil 
spirits, power to bring upon men and the race, all dis- 
eases and epidemics, the black death and all others. For 
Satan smote Job with sore boils from the soles of his feet 
to the crown of his head. Satan is called the prince of 
the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the 
children of disobedience. This text, from the apostle 
Paul, would warrant those who hold the Bible to be 
plenarily inspired, to infer that disastrous happenings in 
the meteorological world were in the power and will of 
the devil. Witchcraft, sorcery and other names which 
mean much the same thing, — in compact with, or under 
the influence of the devil, was not an easy matter to 
prove. The proof must generally come from confession 
of the accused. And torture was the judicial method to 
extort self -accusation. " "To the parent stock of the 
Aryan family of races," says Henry C. Lea, in his 
"Superstition and Force," "it would appear to have 
been unknown ; at least, it has left no record in the elab- 
orate Hindu law as it has existed for 3000 years." But 
whether the Indian ancestors of the Aryan races were af- 
flicted with the superstitious belief in Satanic and de- 
moniac existence and agency in human affairs, or not r 
their posterity in Europe took it as part of the religion 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 323 

which they adopted from its Semitic authors, and for 
centuries governed their practical lives to the fullest ex- 
tent of the original demand. And belief in superhuman 
beings, or spirits good and bad, as intermediate between 
Gods and men, and their mingling in the concerns of 
men, is common to all primitive races and was specially 
prevalent in medieval Europe as an essential element in 
Christianity. Nor did men begin to get the better of that 
dominating feature in the Christian faith, nor can they 
consistently, for Satan and demoniacs are as distinctly 
declared in the Old and New Testaments, as God himself, 
until faith in the supreme and unerring truth and au- 
thority of these writings are weakened in our convic- 
tions. And there seems to be no complete remedy for the 
superstition until the supernatural is cast out of our con- 
victions by an acquaintance with the undeviating laws or 
interrelations of nature's differences, and nature's eter- 
nal comprehensiveness of all cause and effect and pro- 
cedure, takes its place. For the laws of physical and 
psychical nature are not enactments of a supernatural, 
imposed upon or worked into nature from without, but 
are the necessary and inevitable correlations of nature's 
diversities; reciprocal relations, interdependences ; and 
functions and effects are consequential. 

Lecky, in his "European Morals" Vol. 1-18, says: 
"Among the early Greeks, the notion of diabolical pos- 
session appears to be unknown. A demon in the phil- 
osophy of Plato, though inferior to a deity, was not an 
evil spirit, and it is extremely doubtful whether the ex- 
istence of evil demons was known to the Greeks or Rom- 
ans till about the time of the advent of Christ. The be- 
lief was introduced with the oriental superstitions which 
then poured into Rome, and it brought in its train the 
notions of possession and exorcism. ' ' But it appears that 
the Hebrews were familiar with their devil as early as 
they were with their God, perhaps on the principle that 
every affirmation carries with it, by implication, its op- 



324 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

posite. The demon of Socrates was the contrary of the 
demon of Christianity. I quote from Plato's Works, 
Bonn's Vol. 1-18: "Perhaps it may appear absurd, says 
Socrates, that I, going about, thus advise you in private 
and make myself busy, but never venture to present my- 
self in public before your assemblies and give advice to 
the city. The case is this : I am moved by a certain di- 
vine and spiritual influence. This began with me from 
childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, al- 
ways diverts me from what I am about to do, but never 
urges me on. This it is which opposed my meddling in 
public politics." 

Discussion 65. In the Fourteenth Century, the great 
pestilence of all historic ages occurred, the Black Death, 
which nearly dissolved society, and gave occasion for 
great emphasis to Satanic influence as cause of all human 
calamities. "It has been estimated that during the six 
years of its continuance in Europe, 25,000,000 or one 
fourth of its inhabitants, perished. There are no proper 
statistics of the number that died. But it is said that in 
China, 13,000,000 died, and in the rest of the East, 24,- 
000,000. Africa suffered with the rest of the world ; 62,- 
000,000 of human beings perished in a few years of one 
common disease. And no father God intervened to stay 
its ravages, or to suggest its cause or remedy or way of 
avoidance. Or, is it true that the saints of the church 
were in the right of the matter, and God had given over 
mankind to the malice and fury of the devil to work its 
destruction in witchcraft and the black death without 
any reservation as he had made in behalf of Job ? Or is 
the deist right, — there is a God who has created and set 
the world in order and its ongoing, and then abandoned 
it ? Or most reasonable of all, is the atheist right ; there 
is no creator of the world, or loving and protecting fath- 
er of mankind, the world of matter exists eternally, 
without antecedence of time, or spirit, or deity, under the 
causative guidance of changing physical relations or 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 325 

laws. For material nature is eternally in motions as way 
of existing, since it must exist either in motion or not in 
motion, which bring about all events, with no super- 
natural causes to be praised or blamed for what occurs 
or does not occur. There was no beginning of motion, as 
there was no beginning of matter, space or time. And 
intelligence, cognition, to know and feel, to have sense 
perception, intuitive and reflective judgment, are func- 
tions, weak or strong, of specific and positional and mov- 
ing interrelations of matter, called animal organisms. 
And intelligence, with volitional movements of its or- 
ganism, which may be a causal factor in some effects, 
must oppose other and defeating relations that shall 
change human calamities into blessings, as it has done in 
sanitary and other sciences. There was sufficient reason 
for the Hebrew and Christian God to intervene and tell 
Saul that his father's asses were found, and to protect 
Balaam's ass from Balaam's abuse of her, to give the 
ass speech and language to make complaint in her own 
behalf, and tell Balaam why she turned aside and his 
foot was hurt against the wall; that she was afraid of 
the angel with his drawn sword that stood in the way. 
But in all his calamities under the deific and paternal 
regime of the Christian religion, men have not been di- 
vinely forewarned that they might avoid, prevent or rem- 
edy disaster. And in religious contentions which have 
resulted in murders and wars provoked by dogmatic and 
ritualistic differences (bring to mind the thirty years war 
between Catholics and Protestants) which have separated 
Christendom into hostile sectaries, none of these ques- 
tions have been settled by the voice of God declaring who 
was right, as was the question between Balaam and his 
ass. 

On the ground perhaps, that the party believed that 
what he contended for was essential to salvation, and 
what he opposed was damnable and its teaching and 
practice would undoubtedly lead men to hell, it is diffi- 



326 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

cult to see, how such believer could fellowship those who 
hold views antagonistic to his own, and be consciously 
self-consistent. And Lecky relates: "We shall find no 
justification for the popular theory, if we consider the 
actual history of the Church since Const antine, that be- 
neath its influence the narrow spirit of patriotism faded 
into a wide and cosmopolitan philanthropy. In the new 
faith the range of genuine sympathy was strictly limited 
by the creed. According to the popular belief, all who 
differed from the teaching of the orthodox lived under 
the hatred of the Almighty, and were destined after 
death for an eternity of anguish. Very naturally there- 
fore, they were wholly alienated from the true believers, 
and no moral or intellectual excellence could atone for 
their crime in propagating error. The eighty or ninety 
sects into which Christianity speedily divided, hated one 
another with an intensity which extorted the wonder of 
Julian and the ridicule of the Pagans of Alexandria: 
and the fierce riots and persecutions that hatred pro- 
duced appear in every page of ecclesiastical history. The 
Donatists, having separated from the orthodox simply 
on the question of the validity of the consecration of a 
single bishop, declared that all who adopted the orthodox 
view must be damned, refused to perform their rites in 
the orthodox churches which they had seized, till they 
had burnt the alter and scraped the wood, beat multi- 
tudes to death with clubs, blinded others by anointing 
their eyes with lime, filled Africa, during nearly two cen- 
turies, with war and desolation, and contributed largely 
to its final ruin. The childish and almost unintelligible 
quarrels between those who maintained that the nature 
of Christ was like that of the Father and those who main- 
tained that it was the same, filled the world with riot 
and hatred. The Catholics tell how an Arian Emperor 
caused eighty orthodox priests to be drowned on a sin- 
gle occasion; how three thousand persons perished in 
riots that convulsed Constantinople when the Arian 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 327 

bishop Macedonius superceded the Athanasian Paul ; how 
Oeorge of Cappadocia, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, 
caused the widows of the Athananian party to be scourg- 
ed on the soles of their feet, the holy virgins to be strip- 
ped naked, to be flogged with the prickly branches of 
palmtrees, or to be slowly scorched over fires until they 
abjured their creed. The followers of St. Cyril of Alex- 
andria, who were chiefly monks, filled their city with riot 
and bloodshed, wounded the Prefect Orestes, dragged the 
pure and gifted Hypatia into one of their churches, mur- 
dered her, tore the flesh from her bones with sharp shells, 
and flung the mangled remains into the flames. The 
death of Arius took place suddenly, when he was about to 
make his triumphal entry into the Cathedral of Con- 
stantinople, his bowels, it is said, coming out. His death 
never seemed to have been regarded as natural, but was 
a matter of controversy whether it was a miracle or a 
murder. 

And so the tale of crime goes on through volumes 
and for centuries. And those without prejudice and fa- 
miliar with Tillemont, Gibbon, Millman, Lecky, Draper 
and others who have searched the early annals of Chris- 
tian history, may hesitate to decide whether or not Chris- 
tianity has occasioned more virtue or crime, bound up 
more hearts wounded in sentiment and by fear, or phy- 
sically wounded more unto death. One thing seems 
reasonably certain, there have been as many Neros in the 
church as out of it, working for, as against its preten- 
sions. And the reproach of Mohammedanism that its 
early conquests were by the sword, "conversion or 
tribute" its method was less damnable than the massa- 
cres, tortures, imprisonments and confiscations, used by 
the Christian Church, from and after the accession of 
Constantine, i. e., after it had power to enforce its will, 
until the church had conquered the world by fear and 
crime, and not by persuasive reasoning grounded on the 
demonstrated proof of its dogmatic pretensions. 



328 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

The question whether a certain death was a miracle 
or a murder, is suggestive whether these contrasted ex- 
pressions were always so in fact; whether a miraculous 
death might not be a murder, since Gods and devils were 
believed to commit them. Or have such, by virtue of their 
superior natures and greater powers, right over mankind 
and their well-being, as man claims and exercises rights 
over the inferior animals? and brings to mind what the 
Christian holds that the true God put into the mind of 
his prophet, Isaiah, 45-7, to declare concerning himself: 
"I make peace arid create evil. I the Lord do all these 
things." The Bible contains legitimate grounds for all 
the criminal working out of its religious idealism that 
actually occurred as soon as its advocates had the phy- 
sical power to do so. And this power was attained by the 
church over all Europe, Northern Africa and "Western 
Asia. "In the dual governments everywhere in Europe," 
says Draper in his Conflict Between Religion and Sci- 
ence, "the spiritual had obtained the mastery; the tem- 
poral w r as little more than its servant, ' ' The assumption 
of the world's creation by man's creator would give such 
a being the absolute right of control over his creatures 
and power to use it, and this in the judgment of the 
creatures themselves. The assertion and exercise of that 
right are abundant and unequivocal in both Testaments. 
And the declaration of punishment eternal for disobedi- 
ence ("Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet of- 
fend in one point is guilty of all") should stir the efforts 
of believers to enforce extreme measures to prevent hu- 
man beings from falling into the hands of the unrecon- 
ciled God, who is a consuming fire. To suffer torture of 
body even unto death, if this shall succeed, is a mild rem- 
edy against eternal burnings. And a compact, an agree- 
ment with Satan to advance his interests and hinder 
souls from reconciliation to God through the atoning suf- 
fering and merits of Christ; to enter into league with 
the devil to promote the very thing to destroy which the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 329 

1 ' Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the 
works of the devil," was the very acme of disobedience, 
surpassing in heinousness, because of its contempt of the 
special means which God had prepared for man's re- 
demption, the commission of all things forbidden in the 
decalogue, and the omission of all things commanded, and 
merited torture unto recantation, or unto death. For un- 
less the compact could be broken, the heretic was doomed 
to eternal punishment, and if it could be broken by his 
temporary suffering here, the heretic was saved and sa- 
tanic influence which he was spreading to the eternal 
damnation of others was stopped. And instead of " con- 
version or tribute or death, ' ' it was, ' ' acknowledge Christ 
in the sense of my creed, or death." And Christ never 
appeared to tell them which was right or wrong, or that 
persecution was wrong, or to redeem his promise. "And 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world, 
Amen!" The interjection is the emphasis upon the cer- 
tainty of the fulfillment of the promise. Was it fulfilled ? 
Has he ever fulfilled it? How man persists in clinging 
to, and objectifying and personifying his purely subject- 
ive ideas, and makes them Gods, devils and evil spirits, 
and sets them over and in the world as its active agents ; 
and fancies heaven and hell as their respective homes. 
One he locates above the earth, the other beneath it, 
when the earth was flat and fixed. Now it is round and 
moving, he is puzzled to locate either heaven or hell. 
That the devil exists and exercises supernatural power 
we have the same and equal Bible proof of, that God ex- 
ists and exercises supernatural power. And to give up 
this proof of the devil's existence, is to renounce the 
same proof of God's existence. For the existence of each 
is so dependent on that of the other, in the Bible narra- 
tive, that the denial of either implies the incompetency 
of the Bible to prove the other. And to say that the ex- 
istence of the world necessitates its creation, and of con- 
sequence its creator, and God's existence is secure of 



330 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

proof, without the Bible proof of it, is to assert what is 
neither a logical nor a natural necessity from the fact 
of the existence of the world. And to postulate the eter- 
nal uncreated existence of matter in motion, and all 
phenomena as consequential upon changing material in- 
terrelations, to the denial of creation, is a scientific and 
philosophic necessity, and infinitely more reasonable than 
a creation, and as a consequence a creator, whose exist- 
ence and creative power is a gratuitous and merely verbal 
assumption, since it cannot be pictured in thought, and 
if made involves the same supposition of eternal and un- 
created existence as does the universe, without the need- 
less and absurd assumption of its creation. And we fancy 
we have accounted for ourselves and all we know by as- 
suming an unknown and unthinkable creation and cre- 
ator. 

In England, says Lecky, the Reformation was the 
signal for the immediate outburst of the witchcraft su- 
perstition, and there as elsewhere its decline was repre- 
sented by the cler.gy as the direct consequence and the 
exact measure of the progress of religious scepticism. 
Probably its ablest defender was Glanvil, a clergyman 
of the English Church; and one of the most influential 
was Baxter, the greatest Puritan. It was maintained by 
John Calvin in his Murder of Servetus, for his heresy 
of views as judged by those entertained by Calvin. John 
Wesley, the greatest religious leader of the 18th Century, 
was among the latest of the supporters of witchcraft. 
And why did the church, Catholic and Protestant, be- 
lieve in witchcraft and witches, and torture and kill those 
their fancies had possessed with devils, so long and with- 
out pity ? some so bewildered as to declare themselves pos- 
sessed. Because the Bible asserted their existence, and 
enjoined their execution : ' ' Thou shalt not suffer a witch 
to live." Here is the authority and sanction for what 
they did. And why did they cease to execute the divine 
mandatory injunction ? Because there arose in the minds 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 331 

of men a questioning of the true diagnosis of diabolical 
possession, to account for some eccentricities in the con- 
duct of certain persons, as satanic cause of some happen- 
ings to some other persons ; and also doubts of the divine 
authority on Bible license to torture and kill those who 
manifested the eccentricities. And the doubt and denial 
spread so rapidly, that soon the civil powers prohibited 
these torments and executions. So rapidly indeed, that 
Buckle, in his History of Civilization in England, as 
quoted by Lecky, says that in 1660, the majority of edu- 
cated men still believed in witchcraft, but in 1688 the 
majority disbelieved it. I think this can hardly be true 
of the Catholic clergy even to-day. The hierarchy of the 
Catholic Church, allowing there is harmony between 
what it believes and what it advocates, since that hier- 
archy learns little or nothing that recognizes the falsity 
of what it has passed upon, for its judgment once deliv- 
ered is infallible and that forever. It is not likely that it 
teaches to-day that demonaic possession was a mistake of 
past ages, is not now and never has been a human inflic- 
tion, and its persecution and that of other forms of 
heresy was criminal. But an infallible church founded 
and guided by an infinitely intelligent, good and Al- 
mighty God, can not be mistaken and has not been. 

The church claims its right and duty to seek out, 
prosecute and punish heretics. I quote from Hunter's 
(Catholic) Outlines of Dogmatic Theology. "A proposi- 
tion is heretical which is inconsistent with the teaching 
put forth by the church in pursuance of her infallible 
authority as being part of the Revelation which she has 
received. A heretic is one who having been baptized 
holds an heretical position." And as to the right and 
duty of the church to punish heretics I quote from the 
Catholic Dictionary and Encyclopaedia, Article, Inquisi- 
tions, in no age of Christianity has the church had any 
doubts that in her hands, and only in hers, was the de- 
posit of the true faith and religion placed by Jesus 



332 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

Christ, and that, as it is her duty to teach this to all na- 
tions, so she is bound by all practicable and lawful 
means to restrain the malice or madness of those who 
would corrupt the message or resist the teacher. Some 
have maintained that no means of coercion are lawful 
for her to use but those which are used in the internal 
forum, and derive their sanction from anticipated suffer- 
ing in the next world. The power of the church, accord- 
ing to Fleury, is purely spiritual. The overwhelming 
majority of the canonists take the opposite view, namely, 
that she can and ought to visit with fitting punishment 
the heretic and revolter. For many ages after the con- 
version of Constantine it was easier for the church to 
repress heresy by invoking the secular arm than by or- 
ganizing tribunals of her own for the purpose. Refer- 
ence to ecclesiastical history and the codes of Justinian 
and Theodosius, show that the emperors generally held 
as decided views on the pestilent nature of heresy and 
the necessity of exterpating it in the germ before it 
reached its hideous maturity, as the Popes themselves. 
They were willing to repress it ; they took the church for 
the definition of what it was; and they had old-estab- 
lished tribunals armed with all the terrors of the law. 
The bishops, as a rule, had but to notify the appearance 
of heretics to the lay power, and the latter hastened to 
make inquiry ; and, if necessary, to repress and punish. 
But in the thirteenth century, a new race of emperors 
rose to power. Frederic II. perhaps had no Christian 
faith at all. John of England meditated, sooner than 
yield to the Pope, openly to apostatise to Islam; and 
Philip Augustus was refractory towards the church 
in various ways. The church was as clear as ever upon 
the necessity of repressing heretics, but the weapon — 
secular sovereignty — seemed to be breaking in her hands. 
The time was come when she was to forge a weapon of 
her own; to establish a tribunal of incorruptness and 
fidelity of which she could trust. Thus arose the In- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 333 

quisition. Saint Dominic is said by some to have first 
proposed the erection of such a tribunal to Innocent III., 
and to have been appointed by him as first inquisitor. 
Other writers trace the origin of the tribunal to a synod 
held at Toulouse by Gregory IX. in 1229." Thus origi- 
nated the "Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition," 
and for the purpose related above. 

Discussion 66. Whether Christian authority in its 
extreme exercise can extend beyond ex-communication, 
the righteousness of inflicting corporal punishment for 
heresy of doctrine or conduct towards ritual or any other 
conduct that did not violate the code of civil ethics; or 
involve civil rights or the peace of the community ; and 
the physical and psychical fact of demoniac possession 
or obsession; or that there are demons; are questions 
among mankind that are not likely soon to be determined 
by universal agreement. Nor whether the inquisition 
was used with the hesitancy, patient and thorough in- 
vestigation, and the accused defended by counsel, as 
maintained by Catholic writers, or their denial by non- 
Catholic writers. One thing is certain, the Reformers 
were as cruel persecutors for heresy against their dis- 
tinctive creed, as were the Catholics against theirs. And 
it may be a question for philosophic discussion, whether 
the teaching put into the mouth of Jesus, supplemented 
by many passages in the Old Testament, did not legiti- 
mately issue in its after development in the Catholic 
hierarchy and ecclesiastical system. It is true that Je- 
sus is credited with saying : My kingdom is not of this 
world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would 
my servants fight. This was said, if it was said by Jesus, 
as the most fitting thing that could be said under the 
circumstances, in his own defense, when his fate of cruci- 
fixion confronted him on the charge of a capital offense 
against the throne of Caesar. But it would not be said 
by Christians that his kingdom did not embrace this 
world in its intended subjugation. And when his church 



334 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and the world-government and teaching were united and 
the church assumed the supremacy over the world as 
under Constantine, and for centuries after, and still re- 
mains united with^many nations of Christendom; in an 
important sense his kingdom is of the world as well as in 
and for the world, and his servants might fight for it. 
At all events they have done so. And the Christian may 
say what followed was foretold by the prophet Daniel. 
"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven 
set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, but it 
shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." 
This implies violence and war. Nothing is clearer than 
that the reported preaching of Jesus was grounded in 
the idea of absolute monarchy, and not in the idea of an 
authoritative and participating democracy. And noth- 
ing else but absolutism could come out of Hebraism. 
And the inference is natural and easy if not inevitable, 
that the head of this kingdom or church was to be a mon- 
arch or king, Pope or universal Father. And the abso- 
luteness of his authority is symbolized by the deliver- 
ance of the keys to a person, and by the commission to 
bind and loose on earth that which shall be bound or 
loosed in heaven, delegated to this person, and indicates 
absolute monarchy ; and is that which caused the believ- 
ing Catholic to look upon ex-communication with such 
horror. I look with grave doubts upon the utterance by 
Jesus of this language. It sounds too much like an after 
thought to supply a need which a well developed doc- 
trine required to sustain it. And other portions of the 
gospels provoke like suspicions. It is altogether a matter 
of uncertainty what was the real character of Jesus, what 
he really said or did. And this seems reasonable when 
it is remembered that Jesus left no writings, perhaps was 
not able to write. For he is said to have no learning. 
And it seems to be held as evidence of his divinity and 
omniscience that he had none. It is characteristic of all 
proselyting theologies and religions to persuade their 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 335 

votaries to the point of subjective belief, both by the 
flatteries of heaven and the intimidations of hell ; but not 
to the point of objective verification of what they declare 
to be true. This is beyond the susceptibility of the 
theme. That what they preach was and is objectively 
true, and will turn out as they say, they can offer no 
further proof than somebody, centuries ago — Moses, the 
so-called prophets, Jesus Christ, his apostles and others, 
said so. That they said so, may be doubted, having no 
more evidence for it than the Bible; and there is none. 
And if they did, so far as what they said was subjective- 
ly ideal to them and nothing more ; as to us, concerning 
God, creation, the future life, the divinity and virginal 
conception of Jesus, etc., belief of these things by them, 
was no more objective proof to them, than the subjective 
idea of them is objective proof to us. The present pur- 
pose is achieved when people believe. This is the cardi- 
nal and saving virtue of all religions that save men's 
souls. But ultimately these problems are not solved, not 
even touched, by our belief or non-belief. But faith 
serves as strongly in subjective influence, the object of 
it being chimerical, as if true and substantial ; with the 
guilt of murder on the soul, as the innocence of unoffend- 
ing virtue. "If thou canst believe, all things are pos- 
sible to him that believeth. ' ' This is a truism viewed in 
one aspect of its meaning, but not the usual one. If I 
believe that the moon is a great cheese, while I so believe, 
it is possible to me that it can be, and is a great cheese. 
In this view all things are possible to him that believeth. 
If Jesus intended this meaning to his expression, it was a 
mere witticism, and does not seriously concern us. But 
the meaning taken by the Christian is, that what we be- 
lieve to be objective truth on Bible authority is true as 
there stated; or in some way is made true by our faith. 
Jesus says: "Have faith in God. Whosoever shall say 
unto this mountain : Be thou removed, and be thou cast 
into the sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart but shall 



336 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

believe that those things which he saith shall come to 
pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore, I say 
unto you, What things whatsoever ye desire, when ye 
pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have 
them. ' ' This is the language of an enthusiast that has 
no idea of the fixed natural relations between cause and 
effect, as that relation was not recognized in the age in 
which Jesus lived, certainly not by the Jews. Nor can 
those who put plenary faith in the Bible believe it now. 
Desire and faith of themselves, have no power to move 
a grain of matter except the living body of matter which 
is the seat of desire and faith, and that not directly. If 
the point is, that it is impossible to have that faith which 
accomplishes all our desires, it is a play with words — 
an Irishism. Commentators interpret the passage as 
intended by Jesus to refer not to the removal of phys- 
ical, but moral obstacles to the progress of his kingdom. 
But if he had so meant he could have so said. The sub- 
stance of the passage is several times repeated, and us- 
ually seems suggested by physical antecedents, as the 
withering of the accursed fig tree. But commentators 
are advocates of the cause they have espoused and must 
be faithful to their client, by making the testimony fa- 
vor what they wish to prove. But it is impossible for 
them to prove that either by faith or without faith, God 
has removed any "moral obstacle" to the progress of 
Christ's kingdom, in any other sense than the Greeks 
proved that Zeus removed obstacles to the progress of 
the kingdom of Zeus. Events sometimes transpired as 
his advocates desired, prayed that they might, and had 
faith that they would, and Zeus had done it. And so has 
the "Blessed Virgin Mary" to the Catholic. This is the 
kind of proof and no other that victors of battles have 
that induces them to raise anthems of praise to the God 
of battles for their victory. 

Discussion 67. The geogTaphical and time-extent, 
or multitudinous advocates of anv religion is no evidence 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 337 

of the truth of the underlying theology. For theism is 
wholly subjective and admits of no real objective verifi- 
cation. "Enthusiasm is nothing but a misconceit of be- 
ing inspired. Enthusiasm takes away reason and sub- 
stitutes in the room of it the ungrounded fancies of a 
man's own brain, and assumes them for a foundation 
both of opinion and conduct. An enthusiast is one who 
imagines he has special or supernatural converse with 
God, or that he is divinely instructed or commissioned. 
Let an enthusiast be convinced that he or his teacher is 
inspired, and acted on by an immediate communication 
of the divine spirit, and you in vain bring the evidence 
of clear reasons against his doctrines." The derivation 
of the word signifies inspired, enthused, possessed by 
Theos or God. And the above quotation is a charac- 
teristic description of the lives of Jesus, his apostles, the 
old prophets, such men as Luther, Calvin, John Alex- 
ander Dowie, the Mohammedan Dervishes, the Monastics 
of the earlier Christian centuries, and theistic zealots of 
all time and every name, all in fellowship with the mi- 
raculous, that is, the finding in our ignorance satisfac- 
tory cause of what we do not know. The ultimate cause 
of all things is found in the word God, to which is as- 
cribed in endowment language, eternity of being, crea- 
tion of the material space-and-time-universe, diffusion of 
matter in space, and the putting of all into orderly mo- 
tions. This is all destitute of any reality known to us. 
If the productive or creative imagination is designedly 
the recombining of experiences into new images, it is not 
a work of the imagination, for man has had no experi- 
ence of the creation of matter, nor of the direct move- 
ment of any matter by mental agency except the little 
living conscious matter which constitutes earthly life. 

There are those who have carried theistic en- 
thusiasm to the greatest excesses in certain lines, as Sim- 
eon Styletes, who, according to the legends of the saints, 
stood for thirty years on a pillar sixty feet high and only 



338 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

one foot square on top, enduring summer 's heat and win- 
ter 's frost, in constant prayer or thanking to God for the 
many mercies of which he was the recipient. Draper. 
Sometimes these zealots of theism, at war with natural- 
ism, were in agonies of hallucinated sense experience,, 
sometimes in raptures of pleasures. "St. Anthony was 
sorely tempted of the devil, who appeared now as a fas- 
cinating woman, now as a dragon, and once broke 
through the wall of his cave filling the room with roar- 
ing lions, howling wolves, growling bears, fierce hyenas, 
crawling serpents and scorpions. ' ' 

Exclusive devotion to theism in literally following 
the teaching of Jesus, bewilders the intellect and de- 
ranges the clearness of sense perception. Hundreds of 
thousands of men and women abandoned the social, wed- 
ded, workaday, practical, business life and all mental 
striving to attain a knowledge of nature. There was no> 
determinate fixed nature of things, anything could be 
produced or defeated by good or evil spirits. All de- 
sires could be achieved by pra} T er. They were following 
the instructions of the great moral teacher of the Chris- 
tian world. "What things soever ye desire when ye 
pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have 
them. ' ' " All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, be- 
lieving, ye shall receive." "If ye shall ask anything in 
my name, I will do it. " " Ask and it shall be given you, 
seek and ye shall find." "Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures upon earth. But lay up for yourselves treas- 
ures in heaven. " " Take no thought for your life, what 
ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body 
what ye shall put on. " 

It is contrary to all experience and all analogy of 
reasoning to maintain that the interpretation and con- 
struction and practical exemplification of a verbally ex- 
pressed religion, given near the lifetime of its founder, 
is more remote from the intention and teaching of the 
founder, than in ages farther removed from the life time 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 339 

of the founder; that distant future ages, grown very 
unlike the age of the author in scientific acquaintance 
with nature, in intellectual development, the rejection of 
a theosophic, a theophanic, a mythic and mystic philoso- 
phy, which characterized the founder, his people and his 
age, and the adoption of a scientific and natural philoso- 
phy of nature; that such a people discerns more clearly 
and fulfills more nearly the real purposes of the origi- 
nator. Jesus praised poverty, condemned riches, advised 
against labor. Prayer and faith were the means by which 
all need and all desire were to be satisfied by the forth- 
coming of the things praj^ed for. To practically realize 
Kis assurance was the goal of effort for centuries. No 
one need starve, freeze, be long sick, or die unless they 
desired to, or neglect the universal remedy. No mother 
need relinquish the babe from her bosom and deliver it 
to the embrace of the grave. 

His economy of life was diametrically opposed to 
the present economy of Christendom. Was - the latter 
reached by copying the former ? It is the advocate deter- 
mined to win his cause by any means who, informed, can 
maintain that in methods and in fact, this is a Christian 
age, and a Christian country; and our distinction from 
countries our disdain calls heathen, is because they do 
not acknowledge nor follow the Gods of the Bible. And 
hence their inferiority in scientific, inventive and ma- 
terial, social and political advancement. And because 
Christendom does, hence it has obtained these advan- 
tages. Nothing could be further from cause and conse- 
quential effects. This is manifest when the requirements 
of Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, or of Jesus, 
the God of the New, are compared with the actual relig- 
ious life of Christendom. And also what Christianity at- 
tained in its first 300 years, until it united with the civil 
government, became political and of this world. 

It is unlike the requirements of Jesus in what 
Christendom most earnestly and most generally seeks 



340 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

after and in its mode of attaining- it. And in propagating 
what it calls "his kingdom" it does so by methods he 
did not order, and by means he emphatically condemned 
the nse of, as the distinguishing marks of his followers 
and his kingdom. His kingdom was not of this world, 
nor was it to be advanced by copying the methods of the 
world. Its resources and ends were directly and wholly 
supernatural. His advocates were sent forth and forbid- 
den to provide gold or silver in their purses, a bag for 
food or clothing, or change of garments, as those who 
must provide for themselves. And the burden of their 
methods were to declare : ' ' The kingdom of heaven is at 
hand." And to prove it and show what that kingdom 
was, they were to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise 
the dead and cast out devils. And no other means were 
provided to accomplish these results than prayer and 
faith. They were to obtain their food and all else 
needed either by gifts from the people or miraculous pro- 
duction. On a certain occasion his disciples were trou- 
bled, because they had not taken with them any bread. 
Jesus quieted their anxiety by saying: "Do ye not un- 
derstand neither remember the five loaves of the five 
thousand and how many baskets ye took up ? Neither the 
seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many bas- 
kets ye took up?" This was an assurance that miracu- 
lously they could and would produce all they needed. 

A kingdom endowed by its king with miraculous 
powers, and its officials performing miraculous deeds, is 
nowhere found in Christendom or out of it, and never 
was. Such a kingdom somebody has described as set 
forth by Jesus of Nazareth. But by whom is not known. 
That the description as we have it is as Jesus gave it, un- 
changed by the first narrator or subsequent ones, one 
may believe or disbelieve. Jesus does not speak to us for 
himself. He left no writings. That he left the meaning 
of the words as they have come down to us in a language 
he did not speak, unchanged through copyists and trans- 






THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 341 

lators and the handling of men who had views of their 
own to propagate and not simply to copy those of Jesus, 
and that he did the deeds as they are recorded for our 
passive acceptance, one is safer to deny than affirm, if he 
values the truth above falsehood. And if he affirms, he 
is put under consistent obligation to accept as true the 
miraculous tales of gentile antiquity. For the miraculous, 
theistic and spiritistic, was the universal philosophy of 
the unscientific ages, no more doubted than was the earth 
as being a fiat quadrangle, had "four corners," and the 
sun as going around it. It is a monstrous prejudice to be- 
lieve the miracles of Hebraism and Judaism, and deny 
those of the Greeks and Romans, as if the latter were not 
as able to determine the cause of phenomena as the de- 
scendants of Abraham, whose ancient distinction was 
that they made theologies and religions out of their 
dreams and visions, and their modern posterity are 
hated of all nations, and scattered among them all, and 
have become the depositaries of the gold of the world, the 
love of which their later theism rejected as the root of all 
evil, but the peoples who have accepted their later relig- 
ion hail as the root of all good. 

If Jesus has been correctly reported in his sayings, 
his kingdom would be as impossible in any heaven we 
know anything about, as it is in this world. This object- 
ive world or universe of matter and its motions and 
changes of its own working, however strenuously and ab- 
surdly it may be denied any real existence of itself, and 
affirmed to be created by the thought of it, can be neither 
fancied into a created existence nor out of eternal exist- 
ence, nor brought to its conflagration by the figment of 
the second coming of him whose first coming and king- 
dom we are considering, can neither be persuaded nor co- 
erced out of its courses and ways of producing forms 
and their functions, or into others, by prayer and faith. 

The kingdom that Jesus articulated and was at- 
tempted to be realized by monks and nuns and ascetics, 



342 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

under vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience to a 
superior, the renunciation of what human nature craves, 
the maceration of the body by abstinence of what the 
body needs to sustain it, and by infliction of positive 
pain, in the belief that matter is essentially evil, and the 
indulgence of our bodies to the extent of health and 
vigor, is displeasing to God and damning to our souls, 
was the early and prevailing interpretation of Jesus. 
All this is unnatural, or supernatural, is chimerical and 
incongruous in the relation of its parts, incompetent in 
itself for its own needs, and holds conspicuously the ele- 
ments of its own speedy extinction, and that of the race; 
a kingdom of poverty, beggary, ignorance and vaga- 
bondage. Such a kingdom flattered itself that it had a 
divine mission to regenerate the world by bringing it to 
its own type of degeneration. Such a kingdom is called 
The Kingdom of Heaven by Jesus, if he has not been mis- 
quoted. But it is not the kind of a kingdom that modern 
Christendom is setting up. And the kingdom it is setting 
up may be safely denied to be a copy of the original pat- 
tern. There is no reasonable doubt that all the negation 
and vain affirmations unproductive of good demanded by 
that pattern, are not the obvious meaning of much that 
is reported as the preaching of Jesus. "Some writers," 
says Hasting 's Bible Dictionary, "impressed with the 
fact that Jesus constantly inveighed against the Pharisees 
and Sadducees, but never against the members of the 
third of the three great Jewish sects, who yet must have 
everywhere confronted him, have inferred that he and 
John the Baptist, were Essenes. The silence of the gos- 
pels about the Essenes, is certainly remarkable; and 
there are many striking traits in common between the 
Essenes and the earliest Christians." 

Discission 68. It is stated by Lecky, History of Eu- 
ropean Morals, Vol. II, page 108, that "The central con- 
ceptions of the monastic systems are the meritoriousness 
of complete abstinence from all sexual intercourse, and 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 343 

of complete renunciation of the world. The first of these 
notions appeared in the very earliest period (of the 
church) in the respect attached to the condition of vir- 
ginity, which was always regarded as sacred, and espec- 
ially esteemed in the clergy, though for a long time it 
was not imposed as an obligation. The second was shown 
in the numerous efforts that were made to separate the 
Christian community as far as possible from the society 
in which it existed. ' ' The first of these notions finds its 
persuasion and illustration in the fabled unhuman con- 
ception of Jesus, strengthened by his own celibacy. And 
so intense was the esteem for virginity and disesteem and 
degrading the natural cause of child-bearing, it would 
seem reasonable if man duly appreciated his ignoble and 
debased condition that he should go out upon the dung- 
hill and kick himself to death, or kill his mother for very 
shame of her. What nonsense the Christian Church has 
erected into dogma the belief of which is essential to sal- 
vation. "Whosoever desires to be saved, it is above all 
things necessary that he should hold the Catholic faith. ' ' 
Athanasius. 

Virginity in both sexes became so exalted a tenet, 
and natural maternity and paternity so degrading, the 
question was mooted what could have been meant by the 
primitive injunction: "Be fruitful and multiply and re- 
plenish the earth, ' ' and whether the human kind had not 
better become extinct than to be continued under the de- 
basing conditions of natural propagation. But the pro- 
vision for its redemption by the wonderful incarnation 
of the Son of God, gave the divine sanction to the con- 
tinuance of the race. "It was their favorite opinion," 
says Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
Chapter XV, "that if Adam had preserved his obedience 
to the Creator, he would have lived forever in a state of 
virgin purity, and some harmless mode of vegetation 
might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and 
immortal beings." The estimate of natural parentage 



344 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

under the old Hebrew dispensation and under the new- 
Jewish, came to be directly opposed by the implications 
of the divine generation of Jesus and the virginal con- 
ception of Mary. Zacharias and Elizabeth had grown 
old vainly praying for natural posterity. But nature was 
incompetent to this result untouched by the supernatural. 
And when at last their prayers were answered and they 
were permitted to anticipate the greater joy of realiza- 
tion, Elizabeth breaks forth into praise and thanksgiv- 
ing: "Thus hath the Lord dealt with me to take away 
my reproach among men. ' ' Paul gives his testimony on 
the whole, adverse to marriage. It is better to marry than 
of that which, if they cannot conquer themselves without^ 
marriage is the cure. He says touching marriage : "I 
would that all men were as I myself." And the Apo- 
calypse gives the final estimate and value of male vir- 
ginity which is condemnatory, by implication, of both 
parentage and femininity, with doubtful resurrection of 
the latter. Of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth, all 
are men which had not been defiled by women. And 
woman was not an original creation but was taken out of 
man with some modification imposed in her construction 
for temporary purposes; and there are no marriages in 
heaven, and all are to become like the angels ; and we do 
not read of female angels; and the three persons of the 
Godhead are males. We read of the Sons of God, but I 
think not of the daughters of God. But we are told that 
the Sons of God took the daughters of men to be their 
wives. And their progeny became mighty men, men of 
renown. 

The Gods made man in their image, after their like- 
ness, not woman. She was called woman because she was- 
taken out of man. The man is not of the woman, but the 
woman of the man. Woman was made for man, not for 
herself nor for the glory of God. The woman hater, Paul r 
forbade her to speak in the churches, and ordered her to 
have her head covered in token of her subjection to man. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 345 

And if she would learn anything let her ask her hus- 
band at home. Wonder is, the bareheaded sisters, speak- 
ing in churches, and some pastors of churches; realize 
how offensive this must be to God and the great apostle ? 
Childbearing was a penal infliction for the first sin. And 
its sorrows and frequency were greatly multiplied and 
entailed on women to indicate the utter heinousness of 
the sin and the divine disappointment, after the pro- 
nouncement that all things were satisfactory as they 
came from the hands of the creator; so great indeed was 
the regret that it drew from the Lord the expression of 
repentance and heart grief that he had made man, that 
is, woman. For she it was that had brought sin into the 
world, and the realizing capacity and certainty of a sin- 
ning posterity. Adam, sexed or unsexed, was incompe- 
tent to the dire results. What promised a gracious good 
to Adam in his loneliness, proved his curse and that of 
untold millions. I do not recall any passage in the Bible 
that in any degree excuses the woman except what she 
said in her own defense : ' ' The serpent beguiled me and 
I did eat. ' ' But the educated of her posterity may per- 
haps hold the inducement of being exempt from death, 
made wise as Gods, and to have their eyes open to know 
good and evil, as a good and sufficient reason for the dis- 
obedience. And what the serpent had promised, and not 
what God had threatened, was the result, is afterwards 
acknowledged by God. Some dubious amelioration of suf- 
fering in childbirth may be thought to be promised by 
Paul as a result of the Christ-dispensation, which was 
devised to restore what had been lost, and to make good 
what had been made bad, by the disobedience. "Notwith- 
standing she shall be saved in childbearing if they con- 
tinue in the faith and charity and holiness with sobri- 
ety." Is childbearing less painful or fatal in Christian 
women than in non-Christian, other things the same? I 
do not think obstetricians have noticed any difference on 
that ground. The difference aside from an ample and 



346 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

well formed pelvis, is in favor of women least removed 
from an outdoor, active, aboriginal life. Much depends 
upon the age of the mother. It has been observed by ob- 
stetricians of large experience that parturition in moth- 
ers from sixteen to twenty five is easier than those older. 

All the sex-literature of the Bible is marred by ig- 
norance of the anatomy and physiology of sex, as all it 
says about the heavens and the earth discovers the ignor- 
ance of the divine revelator of astronomy and geogra- 
phy. And this seems in conflict with the natural infer- 
ence ; he that made the heavens and the earth must sure- 
ly know them, and if he reveal them must reveal as he 
knows them. 

Metchnikoff, in his "The Nature of Man," in the 
several chapters of "Disharmonies," points out some 
concerning sex, as to its specific organs and their physi- 
ological functions, to the end of their uses. Sexual love 
often manifests itself long before its possible fruition, be- 
cause its several elements are immature. Dante was in 
love with Beatrice at the age of nine. Canova was in love 
when he was a little more than six, and Lord Byron loved 
Mary Duff: at the age of seven. Sexual emotion appears 
at an age when there is no question that the various ele- 
ments that enter into its normal end and uses, which are 
procreation, are undeveloped and so impotent. This in- 
dicates the emphasis nature puts upon the continuance 
of the species and forwardness to effect it, and the little 
regard she has for the welfare of the individual. The end 
or reason of this passion does not accompany it as con- 
scious cause of itself, or incite to its gratification. Na- 
ture's final and secondary causes are carried out to their 
effects without, and often against, the purposes of its 
intelligent instrumentalities. The furor of the sexual 
passion, and the instinct or intelligence by which it finds 
its counterpart or mate, in all bisexed animals, ensures 
the preservation of the races. Deeper than this passion, 
and below the threshold of its consciousness lie the apti- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 347 

tudes of the non-living towards life, and the tendencies 
towards becoming precede and generate the instruments 
of its realization. This is the defensible meaning of what 
is called "design in nature" and argues no intelligence 
in inanimate nature, or designer of, above, or other than, 
nature. Nature involves all cause and effect, and includes 
everything and everywhere. In the tendencies of nature, 
which are the results of its physical relations, we see the 
pattern of man's intelligent inventions, copying of na- 
ture's unintelligent prototype, essaying instrumentali- 
ties whose function shall realize that which has being 
only in imagination. This picturing precedes and gener- 
ates the mechanism which is to functionate the ideal. In- 
animate, nature often fails to realize the complete ade- 
quateness of its mechanics for perfect effective function. 
And so does intelligence. In the old natural theologies, 
which were the religious conceptions of causative natural 
philosophy, written of course, by theologians, and written 
to show the mechanical skill of nature's creator, architect 
and artist, it would be blasphemy to see or narrate any 
defect in the architecture of the supreme divine builder. 
This wickedness was seldom or never perpetuated. The 
perfection of the construction of the eye and arm and 
hand to their uses were favorite topics. I quote from the 
Natural Theology of Rev. Henry Fergus : ' ' Entered ac- 
cording to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835." After 
detailing the anatomical structure and the adaptation of 
part to part to the end of perfect physiological and 
visual uses, the author says : ' ' The eye obviously appears 
to be an organ of most exquisite workmanship ; it plainly 
demonstrates the existence of an intelligent first cause. 
I hesitate not to affirm that, although here were not an- 
other mark of design in the universe, yet the appearance 
of even a single eye would be an irrefragable evidence of 
a designing cause. Wherever I observe mutual adapta- 
tion, reciprocal dependence, the relation of parts to one 
another, and to a common end, there I believe has been 



348 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

design. The belief is invariable, and it is correct. Experi- 
ence proves it invariably true." This is the present 
Judaistic Christian natural theological aspect. But all 
final aspects of Christian theology are dogmatic, apper- 
tain to faith resting on the authority of assertion of re- 
mote Hebraic antiquity, and not on the experience or 
demonstration of present believers. "A dogma is a 
proposition ; it stands for a notion or a thing." (Cardinal 
Newman) The majority of the most intelligent of man- 
kind has not made the inference of a designing intelli- 
gence above or within nature from the complex adapta- 
tions of natural things to a common result. It is not a 
scientific, or of necessity, a logical inference, that all com- 
binations of different parts to a common result were de- 
signed beforehand to this effect. It would warrant mon- 
strous conclusions. 

Discussion 69. Trichina Spiralis is a parasitic worm 
found in the intestines and muscular tissue of man as 
its host. These are adapted to the metamorphic changes 
in the life of the worm and the continuance of its species. 
Therefore it was the design of the creator of man and 
trichinae, that man should live that trichinae might. But 
they are detrimental to man 's health and bring about his 
death. Nevertheless, to emphasize the divine intention 
and to make sure the continuance of trichinae, lest the 
foreseen methods of disposing of man 's body after death 
by burning or burying, might defeat the divine in- 
tention, and bring about the extinction of trichinae, 
it appears that the most fitting, if not the only place for 
these parasites to be born and to pass the eventful stages 
of their lives, is in the intestines and muscles of animals ; 
so they are found also in swine, cats, rats and other ani- 
mals whose dead bodies are eaten uncooked by other ani- 
mals in whose intestines the germs find the conditions for 
their development. Surely man as to the divine regard 
and provision for his continuance and well being, has no 
pre-eminence over trichinae, but is a means to the latter. 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 349 

The basis of Christian theology is not inferential nor 
a priori. It is historically assertive of sensible evidence. 
The God of the Hebrews was visible and audible. The 
challenge to his existence and action was an appeal to in- 
dividual and national sensible experience. The highest 
proof of Christian theology is this assertive experience. 
And the more modern enlargement of the sensible evi- 
dence of seeing and hearing the divine and creative ex- 
istence, has been added that which is peculiarly Chris- 
tian, the generation and birth, tangibility and manduca- 
tion of a, or the, real creative God. And any departure 
from this experience to nature's facts or processes for an 
inferential evidence of the divine existence is the implied 
insufficiency of the sensible self-revealment. And so far 
Christian theology is neither Hebraic nor Christian. And 
the denial that any one hath seen God is the denial of an 
essential fact claimed by both the Hebraic and Christian 
theisms. No theology can maintain its pretensions 
against the bulwark of our absolute ignorance touching 
such existence, notwithstanding the Bible evidence of it. 
and the presentation of scientific verities opposed to its 
fundamental dogmas as objective facts. Hebraic and 
Christian theologies have not and never had any positive 
sensible proofs of what they claim, and this must be ad- 
mitted or Christian monotheistic theology must suffer de- 
feat by the equal proof of polytheistic theology. "Not 
proven by sense'' is the legitimate allegation of reason 
against the Christian theology. And this may be said to 
be admitted, and even declared to be needless, by its or- 
thodox advocates, by their insistence on the saving im- 
portance of faith, and this faith is not the result of proof 
of its propositions, but is the gracious gift of God. This 
is in evidence by the famous Protestant doctrine of ' ' Jus- 
tification by faith alone" and the summation, in the ex- 
pression, "our faith;" by the infantile membership of 
the church, and the most complete of all the creeds I have 
seen, the Athanasian, which opens thus, as I have before 



350 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

quoted: "Whosoever desires to be saved, before all 
things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. 
Which faith, except every one do keep entire and invio- 
late, without doubt, he shall perish everlastingly." But 
how can it be known that the belief of any Christian the- 
ological teaching is the gift of God, and not such as ac- 
companies any tale told a child, or many adults? The 
Bible says faith is the gift of God, therefore it is. The 
Bible says the ass spoke to Balaam, and the fish swallow- 
ed Jonah. And after being in the belly of the fish three 
days and three nights, and praying, the Lord spake to 
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land, and 
Jonah went down to Ninevah. Therefore these events oc- 
curred. These are the statements and such is the Chris- 
tian belief. And it excites a wondering horror in the 
Christian devotee to be told by one that he does not be- 
lieve the Bible. And an equal horror to the Christian to 
be told by one that he believes the Koran, the Book of 
Mormon, or the authoritative book of some other religion. 
The wonder is how one can be so ignorant and so led 
astray from common sense and reason. The popular 
standing of Christianity today rests not on the objective 
proofs of its dogmas, for these repose on such childish 
tales as have just been related, and on natural impossi- 
bilities, as the creation of matter, the infinite extension, 
omnipresence and omniscience of a personality, one hu- 
man birth of a God; fundamental tenets of Christianity 
to-day, impossible of proof, but on the traditional and 
educational teaching that men are morally better for be- 
lieving there is a creative and all dispensing and retri- 
butive God, than not so believing. This was substantial- 
ly the attitude of his judges that condemned Socrates. 
And it may be freely acknowledged that such belief has 
a restraining influence on many, especially the young. 
But it is no proof of its objective truth. A special theis- 
tic and religious belief generates a prejudice in the ad- 
herent of greater intelligence and moral worthiness than 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 351 

he is willing to concede to those of another religion, or 
to those who profess no specific religion. This is brought 
out in a remarkable and noble paper in The Independent 
of July 9, 1908, by J. H. DeForest, D. D., entitled, "The 
Moral Greatness of the People of Japan." He says: 
"The almost universal Nineteenth Century thought of 
Eastern peoples was that they are heathen, pagans, idol- 
aters, immoral, brutal, superstitious, licentious and the 
term semi-civilized was really too good for them. This 
style of thinking still persists. An editor of a large Chris- 
tian paper recently returned from Japan, and said sev- 
eral good things about the Japanese, but added, they are 
still a pagan nation. A clergyman of the English nobil- 
ity, after seeing Japan and Korea, wrote to The London 
Times: "I am not for a moment blaming the Japanese 
soldiery, they have only the ideals of a heathen race." 
The religious bias makes some Christians cruelly unjust 
to a great moral-loving people. One need only ask, Is a 
nation pagan after adopting and being adapted to the 
very best fruits of modern civilization — civil and relig- 
ious liberty, universal education, equality before the law 
and representative government? Can an army of over 
half a million carry on a campaign in a foreign land on 
a higher moral level than was ever attained by other 
armies, and still have only the ideals of a heathen race ? 
The real facts are beginning to loom up before us. And 
new and glad voices are bearing witness to the wonderful 
moral and spiritual life in the nations of the East. 
Bishop Roots, in an address recently given in Boston, 
said : " It is difficult to take in the moral greatness of the 
people of China. They are the only people who have 
never deified vice, who have never placed unsavory 
stories of vice in their classics, who have never publicly 
sanctioned immorality. Their ideals have been scholar- 
ship, peace with the world, and righteousness. It is diffi- 
cult to take in the moral greatness of the people of Japan. 
They are the only people who have an Imperial Line un- 



352 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

broken from prehistoric ages, so revered and loved that 
against it the people have never risen in revolt. They are 
the only people whose passion for righteousness has ex- 
ceeded their greed for gold, and whose love of honor was 
greater than their fear of death. It was the nation 's moral 
character that made it natural to be kind to wounded 
Russians, and to treat their 72,000 prisoners with a de- 
gree of kindness that no Christian nation has yet attain- 
ed. I was in the Japanese army for six weeks privileged 
by letters from the Premier, and so far as I saw and 
heard by careful inquiry, there never was an army so ab- 
solutely free from camp women, so free from drunken- 
ness, from looting, from boasting over a conquered foe, 
and so kind to prisoners. ' ' The article is too long to be 
followed further in its details. Suffice it to say, that the 
author successfully shows the exceptional character of 
the Japanese against each of the four great vices every- 
where met with in all peoples of the earth, and especially 
charged upon the Japanese by those who do not know: 
commercial immorality, sexual immorality; savage bru- 
tality; unsocial, spying natures. The author terminates 
his article : "It is difficult to take in the moral great- 
ness of the Japanese, whose Imperial Line has never been 
broken; whose family life persists through centuries; 
whose heroes, men and women, show a spirit of sacrifice 
that is the very key to the highest moral life ; and whose 
virtues are so virile that they appropriate within the nar- 
row limits of one generation all the great liberties of 
modern civilization, and all the humanity embodied in 
the Red Cross Society." The author says he has lived 
thirty three years in Japan. 

I have made this lengthy quotation to show from a 
non-Christian nation by a Christian author, whose long 
acquaintance with the Japanese by residing among them, 
observing their habits, speaking their language, and 
reading their literature, and thereby giving ground of 
authority to what he says, to the effect that all moral vir- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 353 

lues did not take their origin from Jesus of Nazareth, or 
the Hebrew race, nor are all practically embodied and il- 
lustrated by Christendom. It is difficult for the theistic 
-and religious devotee whose view is that the universe has 
been brought into existence from non-existence, deter- 
mined and arranged by intelligence in all its parts, with 
the most evident marks of design of complete relations 
of cause to perfect effects, by an Almighty, Omniscient 
-and infinitely good, God, "to see or allege any defect in 
what this being has done. And if such a being had really 
•done what the devotee alleges, there would be no defect 
and no ground for its allegation. Writers on natural the- 
ology do not see nor are they expected to find any de- 
fects in nature in regard of means' to ends. Or if they 
do, the devil has done it through the beguilement of Eve 
and consequent divine curse upon the world; mythical 
stories, unworthy of credence except of children. And 
this explanation of defects is evidence of the greatest pos- 
sible defect in the adaptedness of means to the ends of 
goodness, in either the power or Omniscience of God to 
produce them. The intervention of a devil to thwart the 
purposes of a universal, Omniscient and Omnipotent 
Creator, is self-contradictory. The states, acts and effects 
of all intelligently purposed and created things must 
liave their complete causes in their creator, if created, 
since nothing is, except the Creator, that is not depend- 
ent on the creator for what it is, or can become or effect. 
And underived liberty to become or to effect is a denial 
of this proposition. And the alleged existence and oper- 
ations of a devil opposing his Creator argues against the 
universal creation, or Omniscience, or the Omnipotence, 
or Goodness of God. "The human eye," says the natural 
theist, "is an organ of the most exquisite workmanship; 
it is an irrefragable evidence of its designing cause, and 
demonstrates the existence of an intelligent first cause." 
If this be true what is to bar the necessity of the infer- 
ence that the designer of the eye and of the universe 



354 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

must have a designer and creator? For we cannot stop 
the legitimacy of the inference wherever we find or al- 
lege a design, and a stronger reason for it at every 
ascending repetition ad infinitum. Man cannot transcend 
himself the limits of his own capacity. There is nothing 
but human intelligence, will and action, by which from 
analogy, man can infer a creation of the world and uni- 
verse, and the adaptation of means to ends therein. And 
these are inadequate. The Creator like man must follow 
the human model, or man's reasoning has no aptitude to 
determine results. If God would produce anything, there 
must be a concept formed in his mind — the final cause. 
Then a plan of means to effect the ideal and proposed in 
the concept. If a spider were to consider the subject of 
world-making, because it could not rise above its own ca- 
pacity and methods, it must think God did spin the 
world out of his own body. And something like this ap- 
pears to have been the conception of Sir William Hamil- 
ton, when he says that "a moment after the creation 
there was no more of existence in the universe and God 
together, than a moment before creation in God alone. 
God evolved the universe out of himself." Is not this in- 
compatible with creation? If it be true, the world and 
universe should be as complete and perfect and har- 
monious in its parts and working as its creator. For how 
can a complete and perfect cause, involving its effects r 
produce an imperfect and discordant effect? But there 
is no analogy between what man can effect by his intel- 
ligence, will and action, and the absolute creation of mat- 
ter. Or between what man can effect, understanding the 
Jwiv and the why, and the becoming of sensible proper- 
ties and capacities not in their constituents, even the con- 
sciousness and act of this writing. The properties of 
combinations and associations of matter, are neither in 
nor belong to the constituents separated from their com- 
binations or associations; except the weight, which is the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 355 

essential identifying feature of matter, arising from the 
universal relation expressed by gravitation. 

Discussion 70. Man may put into topographical and 
other physical relations the constituents from which na- 
ture's forces may work wonderful results, as the dynamo 
electrical machine shows. And this appertains to the 
whole field of chemistry, and much of physics and other 
sciences. The combinations of matter in the human body 
to the productive effects of life and intelligence are the 
most amazing. But they are as evidently the proximate 
causes thereof, as the combinations of oxygen and hy- 
drogen are of water, or of oxygen and sulphur in the 
production of sulphuric acid. And while man's intelli- 
gence recognizes the law or fact of the causal conditions 
and means, it has not yet penetrated into the how or 
why of the effects. 

We know of no distinct entity of mind separate and 
apart from matter and its specific interrelations called 
organization. Every living animal organism has its pur- 
vieAv of psychic awareness, rising to consciousness, self- 
consciousness, and extensive degrees of intelligence in ac- 
cordance with its physical complexity of structure, and 
extent of cultivated functional experience of that por- 
tion of the organism that makes for intelligence. All 
properties, qualities, capacities and differences, so far 
as known by the present advance of science, originate in 
physical difference of positional interrelations and num- 
bers of one substantive matter and its motions. Some 
have found the prognostics of intelligence in polarity, in 
chemical and other affinities in the groupings of mole- 
cules, in crystallization, and more distinctly, in the sensi- 
tive plant. The name of this common ancestor has been 
christened sensitivity. We retreat further and further 
through the phenomena of forms, their functions and 
properties, and differences of all kinds, and come upon 
wider and wider enfolding generalizations, until we 
reach one undifferentiated and all enfolding eternal form 



356 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

of matter, in infinite numbers in motions as mode of ex- 
isting, and space and time as conditions. These are the 
limits of our regression and our ultimate findings. All 
else comes from these primals and by synthesis is return- 
able into them. The reason and the how must be sought 
for and found, so far as they shall be found, in these 
ultimate and necessary premises. And so far as found 
they have been found in the mechanics of the material 
units considered in their numbers, their interrelated 
positions and their physical environment. And the uni- 
versal and inevitable conditions and limitations, the veri- 
ties or laws, space and time, insure order everywhere and 
always, so that failure of order is as impossible as failure 
of space and time. 

We do not find mind to be an added substantive en- 
tity, from which cause, matter, space and time become 
and cease, while mind remains intact. But we discover 
exactly the contrary. That mind is an individualized ap- 
pearance, as unsubstantial and dependent on states and 
conditions of matter as the rainbow. Consciousness by in- 
trospection and by objective investigation thus far has 
failed to find an involved end, subject, self or ego, which 
is conscious, and may be considered separate and apart 
from consciousness (though the world is full of asser- 
tions to the contrary and great institutions are founded 
on the contrary assumption) except the living matter of 
the body. And when the body is dead the mind or con- 
sciousness disappears. I say this from the present view 
point of verifiable science. I know the objections from 
idealism and from spiritualism, but do not propose to 
consider them here. They have been touched upon in 
parts of this essay. "The schools have of late," says 
Boyle, cited in Century Dictionary, "much amused the 
world with a way they have got to referring all natural 
effects to certain entities which they call real, and at- 
tribute to them a nature distinct from the matter they 
belong to, and in some cases separate from all matter 






THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 357 

whatsoever. ' ' The scientific acceptance of laws and prop- 
erties, says G. H. Lewes, is justifiable because of their ob- 
jective validity, i. e., their agreement with sensible exper- 
ience. But a substantive entity of mind is an unfounded 
notion, because it has no verifiable objective validity, and 
no agreement with sensible experience. 

And inasmuch as our intellectual nature necessitates 
the primal postulate of eternal uncreated existence, and 
this negatives any psychic demand for absolute creation, 
creation is as needless as it is impossible and 
inconceivable. Matter shows no signs of having- begun to 
exist or capacity for ceasing to exist. But on the contrary 
having existed for incalculable eons and discovering no 
indications of waste, or wear, or weariness of action, the 
inference is legitimate, in connection with the inevitable 
primal postulate that, if there be existence, there must be 
eternal existence. And knowing no other existence that 
can be eternal, matter must be the eternal existence 
postulated. Matter existing without beginning is the con- 
tradictory of matter not existing without beginning, and 
is of necessity the scientific and philosophic primal as- 
sumption. For neither science nor philosophy can ground 
on professed ignorance without partaking of that essen- 
tial feature, nor on the assumption of creation or creator 
of existence, for these assumptions are not necessary nor 
provable, reasonable nor conceivable. If there be any 
changes or becomings in any respect or degree, these 
must be involved as possibilities in the nature and cir- 
cumstances of matter. No changes can take place in mat- 
ter or becomings issue from it without motion of matter. 
No motion except in the orders of space and time, from 
which there can be no deviation. Hence, mechanical and 
mathematically measurable and numerable. Matter is 
everywhere and always found to be in motion, and the 
system of the universe as now understood requires it. 
Therefore motion is the eternal mode of existing of mat- 
ter. The motions and interrelated positions of matter be- 



358 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

ing of necessity in the orders of space and time, all 
evolved phenomena and mechanical and orderly. Motion 
of matter is force. Without motion or tendency to mo- 
tion of matter, there is no force. Our primal postulate 
involves the universe, the comprehensive all. 

Discussion 71. Life is a possibility of matter and 
matter has actually become living in some special inter- 
relations of positions and motions with itself, under a 
definite environment. Where these are present matter is 
alive with as much consequential certainty as where there 
are other specific interrelations of matter and motions 
with itself under some definite environment, the matter 
involved is acid, is aqueous, is diamond, is a watch, is a 
tree, is a man, or what-not, as the case may be, with 
properties, capacities and functions, as new factors, 
which were not in the antecedent premises. How are 
these new factors to be accounted for? Most evidently in 
the structure. If the present scientific analysis of matter 
reducing it to one form and one nature, to common sus- 
ceptibilities and capacities, be accepted or rather be 
true, there seems but one inference to be legitimate, that 
all differences of objective and subjective, and all differ- 
ences that come under each of these denominations are 
found in the synthetic mechanics of the units of matter, 
their related positions to one another in space, and their 
space and time relations of motions. Definite proper- 
ties, capacities and functions belong to, inhere in, defi- 
nite structural relations. This need not surprise us as a 
universal proposition, since it is found to be true in all 
inductions of experience without exception. The mechan- 
ical structure of matter "is pregnant with the meaning 
of the universe.'' 

The way the primary units of matter or corpuscles, 
the latest findings of physical science, are built up re- 
sults in atoms, the building of these in molecules, of 
these in masses, and organized structures. The universal 
mode of existing of matter in motions and not quiescence 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 359 

makes all changes possible, even certain. The two con- 
trasted states of matter and its two contrasted proces- 
sional phenomena, are inanimate and animate, inorganic 
and organic, not living and living from the same iden- 
tical corpuscular matter, differing only in numerical 
units and their mechanical combinations. There is no 
mind where there is not life, and no life where there is 
not a complexus of bodily internal relations called or- 
ganic, definitely adjusted to external relations. Chemical 
union more intimately and intensely involves its constit- 
uents than simpler physical structures, obliterates their 
specific properties and originates new properties that 
inhere in and belong to, the new synthesis of the same 
constituents. Properties are native characters of form, 
quantity or mass, number and construction, and move- 
ments of matter. And while all differences between the 
not living and the living, and all other, must be refer- 
red to the one matter existing in motion under the uni- 
versal conditions and orders of space and time, all life 
may be referred to the chemical union of a few differ- 
entiated atoms of one matter. Protoplasm is the one liv- 
ing structure of both vegetal and animal beings. Life, 
then, is the property of essentially one chemical struc- 
ture of one not living matter. Prof. Loeb says: "We 
are to remember that all life phenomena are ultimately 
due to motions or changes in colloidal substance," and 
protoplasm is the colloidal substance to which all life 
phenomena are due. Matter then, in special and highly 
complex mechanical positional and moving relations 
with itself, and a definite environment is living, and liv- 
ing because of these relations. These relations are 
causal antecedents of all the mental or physical 
range of phenomena from bare awareness in some re- 
spects of a bit of protoplasm to the most acute and ex- 
alted sense perceptions and intellectual apprehensive 
and comprehensive intuitive and inferential and reason- 
ed conclusions. Metaphysics are grounded in the physical 



360 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

conditions of matter. And as the constituents of pro- 
toplasm are essentially the same, we are ]eft to conclude 
that not only all the difference between the two king- 
doms of animate nature, but all the difference in the 
grades of animal and human life phenomena to the most 
pronounced, varied and extended psychic life depend 
upon and are the issue of corresponding differentiations 
in the protoplasmic constructions and operations. To 
these material and chemical data life is seen to belong 
as property or character. Of this life or living matter 
there is the science of biology, and its specialized mental 
department called psychology, may be studied without 
much reference to its origin in the physics of matter, as 
the universal property of motion of matter or force, and 
called dynamics, may be studied almost apart from con- 
sideration of matter. "Organization and biotical func- 
tions arise," says Dr. W. B. Carpenter, author of Car- 
penter's Physiology, "from the natural operation of 
forces inherent in elemental matter. ' ' 

And all chemical unions including the bioplasmie 
that appears to have in it the native property of life 
and all its possibilities of thought and feeling, cannot be 
conceived other than the more intricate and intimate 
blending of attenuated portions of matter in a maze of 
orderly self-related vibratory motions, akin to the sim- 
pler, juxtaposed physical unions. And yet how great is 
the difference between the simple and the complex struc- 
tural results. Mind is nothing apart from a living mater- 
ial organism. Man is a product of nature. He is cosmic as- 
well as the mountains; yes, more. They register their 
being from a vast force that has lifted them from the 
depths miles toward the heavens. He is a hierarchy 
drawn from the mountains, the atmosphere, the ocean, 
all climes, the stars, the ages past and grapples with all 
problems. The advancing complexity of the organism 
measures the advance of mentality from the simple 
awareness of the moner to the objective and self -con- 






THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 361 

sciousness and inferential reasoning of man. Man is his 
own standard from which he interprets all mentality 
and volitional action below himself. He does not know 
that life ranges above as well as below himself, but he 
strongly suspects that it does. And while he has no 
scientific or analogical ground to hold that, if it does, it 
can be disassociated from organized matter. But before 
he became scientific in his experience or thinking, or 
capable of intellectual reasoning, and before he had any 
knowledge of matter and its relations to mind and intel- 
ligence, and had no reason to believe that one thing 
might not be as well as another, he came to believe that 
human life is something in and of itself, substantial and 
enduring, and owed no dependence on matter. And this 
notion has by continuous teaching descended to our own 
time. And today, human life at least, is considered by 
a class of teachers not as living matter, become so as a 
cosmic evolution as all present forms and properties of 
matter are from atoms to suns inclusive, and from the 
non-consciousness of matter to its highest intellectuality, 
but as a living substantive immaterial entity, in the ab- 
sence of any knowledge of a substantive immaterial en- 
tity. And if there is, there is no knowledge that it is liv- 
ing, or can do anything, or is essentially independent of 
matter. And if man attempts to ascend and devise living 
beings above himself, he must construct them after the 
pattern of himself, put mind, and will, and deed, into 
forms like his own, he calls them immaterial without 
knowing what immaterial is, or that it is, except it be 
the property or function of the material, labels 
his constructions infinite in power, names them 
Gods, anthropomorphic divinities! There they are 
as real and substantial as imagination and words 
can make them. " There are exterminating angels, 
that fly wrapt up in the curtain of immateriality and an 
uncommunicating nature." Jer. Taylor. 

Sensitivity, and intrinsic and essential and universal 



362 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

recognition, so to call it, of matter by matter, would ap- 
pear to be the native ground of all that becomes partic- 
ularized and emphasized by increasing complications of 
matter with itself. Universal gravitation, or the inher- 
ent tendency of matter to associate or mass itself, ap- 
parently has no other conditions than quantity already 
massed and space distance between masses, and these 
are necessary states of matter in its mode of existing in 
motion. The selections of chemistry, of photography, 
electricity, magnetism, of polarity, crystallography, and 
the nutritive selections of cells, tissues and organs of 
living matter, involve the essential nature of matter not 
living and living, and absorption and assimilation of 
proper food amidst improper and inadmissable materials 
as do the one celled microscopic infusoria, "that mil- 
lions of them collected into a mass would not equal in 
bulk a grain of sand, and 187 millions would be required 
to weigh a single grain. And a single thread of a spi- 
der's web is found to be composed of six thousand fila- 
ments." The germ cells of animals including the hu- 
man, and the seeds of plants partake of the nutritive 
materials common to other cells of the body, but so ar- 
range the particles of the food as to give the distinctive 
genetic properties and qualities to these cells which 
others do not possess. And when the female cell or egg 
is fertilized by being penetrated by the male cell or sper- 
matozoon, the new individual takes its origin, and starts 
off a constructive activity in placing matter in space 
relations with matter, obeying the joint but proportion- 
ed impulse of either parent so as to realize a new being 
like the parental, yet different. "So that the ultimate 
problem of sex, fertilization, inheritance and develop- 
ment, are cell-problems." The Cell in Development and 
Inheritance. Is this constructive talent, so to call it, to 
be ascribed to teleologieal proposeful intelligence in the 
active material agencies at work, or in a remote or pres- 
ent agent, but other than cosmic? Magnetic discrimi- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 363 

nation and crystal placing are as precise and tend to an 
end, or completed satisfaction, as are vital selections. 
Must not these exquisite discriminations and activities 
directed unerringly to an end, from physics and chem- 
istry; from universal gravitation; the selective activity 
of the magnet ; from a single cell organism to millions of 
them incorporated in a body, each acting an independent 
part which jointly eventuate in an elephant, a boacon- 
strictor, a man ; and a mental resultant, some part of 
which, some cell, feels itself to have produced, or all the 
cells together feel themselves to have produced — we have 
no more reason to believe than that mentality determines 
water to run down its bed stream rather than up. From 
the point of view of exactness of deed and certainty of 
effect, the action of the living cells compared to which 
human intelligence and its working from final cause 
and definite purposive intent, would be at fault, both in 
plan and execution ; indicate some cosmic principle which 
is not intelligence acting from final cause and definite 
plan, devised means and execution from intention, which 
is blundering expertness of intelligence and volitional 
indirectness of action and miscarriage of result. In 
thinking, there arises a search for something more defi- 
nite and satisfactory than is in the thought ; or to ren- 
der the thought more distinct than it is ; or to determine 
whether the thought is compatible as truth with the 
thoughts already established as true to nature. The cos- 
mic principle appears to be not intelligence, not purpos- 
ive, not a definite end in view, not intent to realize a view 
by action. All this is human blundering. We see noth- 
ing of the methods of incompetent intelligence and ac- 
tion in nature's physics or chemistry, or building of 
worlds or organisms. Nature's operations without in- 
telligence, purpose or intent are effected of necessity by 
the laws and activities of material relations. It is the 
function of some of her organisms consciously, intelli- 
gently, to realize, contemplate, study and imitate, where 



364 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

action to a very limited extent is volitional correspond- 
ing to conscious preception. But the unconscious cosmic 
principle must include the conscious human, as the non- 
living includes the possibility, nay, the certainty, of the 
living, since life has occurred; as the verities of space 
and time include and are the orders of existence and 
activities of matter and all its becomings. Cosmic recog- 
nition appears to be a property inherent in material re- 
lationality as matter must assume space and time rela- 
tions in its mode of existing in motions. 

A distinguished writer says, that he knows no reason 
in the nature of things, why all should not come to an 
end this instant, as he is unable to discover any assur- 
ance of stability in nature itself. Yes, true, if he be- 
lieves nature or the material space and time universe to 
have been created and ever has been and continues at 
the arbitrary will of its creator, as its creation was at 
his arbitrary will; enhanced by the strong presumption 
that what begins to be will cease to be. But neither its 
creation nor creator does he know, nor can conceive, nor 
does any true and verifiable science of nature legitimate- 
ly lead him to infer, nor from any necessity need he 
affirm, the creation of the universe. He has been taught 
the words "creation of the universe," by instructors as 
ignorant of such an event as himself, and he repeats the 
same to his pupils. Taught by barbarian ancestors who, 
like our children, neither saw nor felt any impossibility 
or improbability of absolute creation, and supposed the 
sentence "God created the world," was sufficient evi- 
dence of the act and the agent. And this is all the proof 
the subject is susceptible of. And of the sufficiency of 
this proof there has been a striking realization from chil- 
dren in the Sunday Schools to presidents and professors 
in universities. Of one hundred adult persons met on 
the street and asked the question, probably not five would 
express any doubt of the matter. And they would prob- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 365 

ably question back: "Where then did it come from; it 
must have had a beginning some time ? ' ' 

Discussion 72. But if he holds the material space 
and time universe to be eternal and therefore uncreated, 
as some existence must be if anything exists ; and nothing 
can be posited out of and beyond, or other than the uni- 
verse, which the universe is known not to contain, in- 
clude, or comprehend, then he cannot avoid the con- 
clusion of the everlasting stability of the matter and 
force and phenomena of the universe. Since whatever 
exists without beginning to exist, must continue and can- 
not cease to exist. But his own continuance as a think- 
ing, feeling and acting personality, as he, as such, had 
a beginning, cannot be insured a moment's stability. 
And nature's operations and becoming and dissolutions 
are orderly and must be, for they cannot transcend the 
orders of space and time and cannot be made to. The 
universe must be conceived as observation, scientific and 
phlosophic reasoning declare it to be, one evolving, dis- 
solving, systematic whole, infinite in extent and content. 
It must be systematized, for it cannot get out of the or- 
ders of space and time, or the relativity of its own parts. 
And neither beginning nor termination of its existence, 
nor more or less, or other than there is and ever has 
been, can we say there is place or time for, or order of 
becoming or ceasing to be. All substantive existence is 
ever changing in form, property and function, as mode 
of existing. So that one atom more of created matter 
couM no more be added and find place and use, than 
space for it to exist and act in, and time for its action 
could be created. To a completed watch, were there nor 
oould there be 'but one watch, as there is nor can there 
be but one material space and time universe, one more 
screw or wheel could find neither place nor use. And 
these could only be found by the wreckage of the watch, 
and another watch after a different plan and system of 
parts constructed. So if a new atom of matter were 



366 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

brought into existence from non-existence, there would 
be neither place nor use for it in the universe. And it 
could find place and use only in a new adjustment which 
would derange the present order of thing's from universal 
gravitation to our individual personality, if it did not ne- 
cessitate an antecedent creation of space and time. 

That properties and functions originate in, or are 
caused by, or of necessity accompany, definite forms, in- 
ternal constructions, and even mere quantity or aggrega- 
tions of matter, while the same properties and functions 
do not belong in any degree to the separated parts, or to 
small quantity, is well set forth by Sir Oliver Lodge, in 
his ' ' Life and Matter. ? ' " There is no necessary justifica- 
tion, ' ' he says, ' ' for assuming that a phenomenon exhib- 
ited by the aggregate of particles, must be possessed by 
the ingredients of which it is composed ; on the contrary, 
wholly new properties may make their appearance simply 
from aggregation. The aphorism sometimes encountered, 
that whatever properties appertain to a whole must es- 
sentially belong to the parts of which it is composed, is a 
fallacy. A property can belong to an aggregation of 
atoms which no atom possesses in the slightest degree. 
Those who think different are unacquainted with mathe- 
matical laws ; they are not experienced in critical values, 
above which certain conditions obtain, while below them 
there is suddenly nothing. A meteoric stone may seem to 
differ from a planet only in size, but the difference in 
size involves also many other differences, notably the fact 
that the larger body can attract and hold to itself an 
atmosphere — a circumstance of the utmost importance to 
the existence of life on its surface. In order that a planet 
may by gravitative attraction control the roving atoms 
of gas, and confine their excursions to within a certain 
range of itself, it must have a considerable mass. The 
earth is big enough to do it; the moon is not. By simply 
piling atoms or stones together into a mighty mass there 
comes a critical point at which an atmosphere becomes 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 367 

possible ; and directly an atmosphere may spring into ex- 
istence, which without it were quite impossible." Here 
is a general recognition that matter in motions in space 
and time relations, are causal of eventuating phenomena. 
I take it that science is now sufficiently advanced to war- 
rant the conclusion that the new solar system of matter 
was in such a state of diffusion by extreme heat, that no 
S3 r stems as celestial and terrestrial physics existed, but 
only matter in motions, and universal gravitation; no 
chemical affinities took effect ; probably no atoms of mat- 
ter were formed; but matter in its corpuscular or elec- 
tronic minuteness, simplicity and nakedness, if this is the 
ultimate and no further anatysis is possible because there 
is no further analysis of matter; but certainly no lif? 
was possible. But within this revolving, seething mass, 
and its conditions and orders of existing and changing, 
space and time, lay all the possibilities and certainties of 
what has followed. All the distinctions of sun and plan- 
ets, system within system, atoms, molecules, affinities; 
differences of forms, properties, functions, including life 
and all its manifestations in material shapes and degrees 
of awareness to distinct senses, intellection, conscious- 
ness, inference, reasoning ; life that is nearest to the non- 
living to that most remote from it, in fullness, exactness 
and certainty; life protistic, vegetal, human, parental, 
social, ethical, religious, governmental, — all have arisen, 
been evolved from, naked matter in a state of motion, 
subject to the orders of space and time, and any influence 
or matter living or not living that might have come into 
this solar space from the universe of matter in motions 
beyond. And this seems not improbable, as the universe 
is one interrelated whole, giving and receiving. And 
especially, if the sun with his attendant worlds and scat- 
tered meteoric matter that obey his gravitative power, is 
voyaging round a center that commands the sun's obedi- 
ence and his retinue, as all within the solar space obeys 
the sun. AVhile this infinite natural source of antecedent 



368 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

causatives for what was to follow and is seen to have fol- 
lowed, at his hand for particulars, it seems surprising 
that men should feel the need to assume a supernatural 
to intervene at some points of what has followed, and for 
the existence of matter in motions. For a supernatural 
there is no place or use in the natural, nor place or time 
beyond, for there is no beyond, and these verities are 
natural and cannot be excluded from, nor extended be- 
yond, the universe. And more surprising* that men 
should persuade themselves that they are actually aware 
of a supernatural, when for it to be true as coming with- 
in the certainties of human cognition, it can only be by 
way of discriminating exclusion from nature. They 
must know the natural in all its actualities and possibili- 
ties, in all its space and time extent, and know some- 
thing besides, and know that it is no part of nature or 
the universe. It will not do to say that the supernatural 
has, of itself, come within human cognition, for this 
would be its assumption, but no proof of it. And the 
supernatural being thus known by distinguishing it from 
all the possible natural, a further knowledge is needful, 
to determine between a supernatural agent and what 
stands for its product, and to know that the identified 
supernatural was able to, and did produce that which is 
found amidst nature and is not natural. But from an 
absolutely unknown the allegation of a word (there is no 
real existence and deed known to correspond to it) to ac- 
count for nature or the universe, or for something alleg- 
ed to be in nature, that is not of nature, but is super- 
natural, nothing can be gotten out of such assumption 
but what is first gratuitously put into it. And if creation 
of the universe is gotten out of the word creator, God or 
Deity, it can only be because it was first put into these 
words. 

And there never was an experience, or a conviction 
that the fact itself of creation induced, nor is creation of 
the universe a necessary and inevitable truth; and the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 369 

^coinage of a word was sought to express it. But experi- 
ence asserts, and legitimate inference therefrom declares, 
that the universe of real existence of indefinite extent 
now exists. And the necessity of thought affirms that, if 
there is real existence existing, it must ever have existed, 
because no real existence can begin to exist without cause 
for beginning to exist, and no real existence can be its 
own cause for beginning to exist. Therefore there must 
be real eternal and uncreated existence existing. Then 
the affirmation of the creation of real existence is a 
gratuitous assumption, and contradicts a necessary and 
inevitable assumption of eternal and uncreated existence. 
And there is no existence known not to be comprehended 
in the universe, that is, in eternal existence and what is 
evolved from it. 

A scientific and reasoned philosophy neither knows 
nor of necessity postulates a beginning. It grounds on 
■self-evident truths; sensuous and intellectual; on posi- 
tive, enduring, substantive existence. Absolute creation 
of substantive existence can have no place in knowledge. 
It is not found in, nor can it be imported into scientific 
philosophizing. A beginning implies a termination of that 
in respect to which there was a beginning. Existence 
without beginning, which of necessity must be granted, 
implies continuance without termination. All origins 
liaA r e their source and efficient reasons in what had no 
origin. The eternity of the heavens and the substance of 
the earth, not the creation of the heaven and the earth, is 
the true aphorism. 

It is surprising what a prestige superstitious regard 
for the sayings of remote undeveloped antiquity has had 
and now exercises over educated men, that they are still 
satisfied with "fiat creation, ' ? as an actual event, or a 
reasonable explanation of what is problematical, as if 
they saw clearly and with certainty, the realness, the 
how. the material universe from non-existence sprang 
into being at the command — "come forth," or "Let the 



370 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

worlds exist." But all the creative pcnver put into the 
command is but the echo of human voices. And the put- 
ter-forth of such prolific command that when, and where, 
and before anything was, space and time, and infinite 
worlds pregnant with all laws, actualities and possibili- 
ties, at once became. This is but the same childish 
credulity whose echo we repeat and the reverberation 
goes on sounding down the ages the same theistic fanati- 
cism taken as literal objective fact. And most surprising 
that educated men, desiring to discover, not to invent, 
answers to their questions, should hold mind to be in. and 
of itself, a knowing entity, but know not mind as such a 
something that is united to, but may be detached and 
separated from matter, without its destruction or even 
damage to its capacity of knowing; of which entity how- 
ever, no one has ever had a sense cognition, or any other 
that could be verified. It is called spirit. But this when 
first used meant breath, air, a real, that had an objective 
existence and could be verified. But the technic which 
it came to stand for is not an objective real, nor strict- 
subjective. For if consciousness or what is subjective, is- 
a state of a mind-entity, it may well be denied that we 
are conscious of the subject, as the objective entity of 
our consciousness. The meaning of objective thinking 
thing, or thing which thinks is different from think- 
ing, and has first to be put into the word mind before it 
could be gotten out of it. The thing was not first discov- 
ered and the tag mind put upon it as its name, as breath, 
air, wind, was discovered as real and tagged spirit. What 
I have expressed is in conflict with what I am about to 
quote from high authority. But any one can introspect 
his consciousness and determine for himself, if he is con- 
scious of any thing not his body and not material, which 
is conscious and thinks and feels. "The idea I have of 
the human mind, in so far as it is a thinking thing, ' ' says 
Descartes, "is incomparably more distinct than of any 
corporeal object, '' ' " Mind, ' ' says Sir William Hamilton, 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 371 

"is the subject of which consciousness is the general 
phenomenon. Consciousness is to mind what extension is 
to matter.'' 

Here mind is a thing that thinks, is conscious, bat is 
not material. And of which Descartes says he has a men- 
tal image clearer than his vision and touch of matter. He 
claims for his idea, not a recalled form from memory of a 
sense object, but by implication either a clairvoyant 
vision, or an image of the constructive imagination. I 
shall take his meaning to be the latter. It is a pity he has 
not told us how he identified his idea as being the "think- 
ing being," or its truer image of it than his vision of 
matter, or its remembered impression upon his senses. 
And Hamilton makes mind as much a thing in and of 
itself, a positive objective existence whose property of be- 
ing conscious is as essential to its existence as the prop- 
erty of extension is to the existence of matter. Matter 
cannot lose this property or have it suspended or held in 
abeyance, and have it restored again. Is the thing which 
thinks, is consciousness an essential property of it, and 
could not exist if it did not think, or was there conscious 
thinking when under the influence of anesthetics, or 
while a portion of the skull is pressing upon the brain? 
How can it be proven that there is consciousness in the 
denial of the patient ? 

Discussion 73. This thinking thing is declared to be 
not material. How is it so intelligently determined in the 
absence of any knowledge of what exactly it is ? For im- 
material, one of its names signifies that it is not material, 
but gives no hint of what it is. And spirit has too large 
a catalogue of meanings, to take a definite technic or 
philosophic meaning, from wind and the breath of men 
and animals, to the haughtiness of a lord, and the poor 
in spirit of the religious devotee ; from life in general to 
the spirit of hartshorn, and hundreds of medicinal, phar- 
maceutical and commercial designations; familiar spir- 
its. Spirits Act, an English Statute, the Spirit of God 



372 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

and the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. 
None of these designations except for air and for what 
may be seen and touched, and life, and for quality of 
sensuous living beings, signify any objective thing or 
person that is known distinctly and certainly to exist. 
Spirit, as the subject of human consciousness and of the- 
istic and religious nomenclature, if it signify any thing 
more, is but an indefinite and confused idea or mental 
picture constructed by the imagination, perhaps never 
two alike by different persons, or twice alike at different 
times by the same person, and never a true picture of 
any known objective existence. For such existence has 
never entered the senses. We may safely and sanely say, 
that life, mind, soul, ego, self, or spirit, is not known to 
T)e not material, or not materialistic as effect or cause. It 
may be distinguished from matter, and each of these 
terms somewhat from the other in a critical psychology, 
"but neither of these words is known to express a real ob- 
jective entity existing separated and apart from matter. 
Time-keeping by a watch may be denied to be matter, 
but not that it is material; for it is the function of a 
definite arrangement of portions of matter, some of 
which are in motion. So electric and heat forces may be 
distinguished from matter, and their laws of operation 
dealt with almost to the neglect of any consideration of 
matter, but they have no entitive existence apart from 
matter, and are held as motions of matter, and hence are 
material phenomena. And all evidence that bears de- 
cisively on the question of what mind or consciousness is 
in our present state of information, proclaims it to be a 
property or function of a very local complex arrange- 
ment of particles of matter in motions. This view har- 
monizes with all else known of nature. And all talk of a 
supernatural is mere logomachy or an attempt to endow 
words with power to create substantive existence and lo- 
cate it outside of nature ,and settle upon the suppositi- 
tious existence power to create the universe. This is the 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 373 

commanding view of Christendom so far as there is any 
fixed view of the lower and middle classes. But many 
have no fixed persuasion on the point. But they suppose 
a creation of matter, and see no serious difficulty in crea- 
tion, since they make a word to stand for a sufficient 
cause, and think no further, and hold there must have 
been a beginning. A beginning and a beginner is at the 
bottom of all the error I am contending against. It is im- 
possible to get out of or beyond nature or find its begin- 
ning or beginner. 

Mind, thinking, consciousness, personality, can pre- 
sent no evidence of greater extent than life, nor life than 
living matter, nor living matter than is organized into a 
local complex of definitely related positions and notions. 
And this relation dissolved and life is not. Is thought 
and thinking thing preserved intact after death? 

A portion of living germinal matter is detached 
from the body of either parent, and joined together in 
the body of the mother. And this inseparable unity is 
the origin of a new individual, beginning as a parasite, 
taking form and growth and parental likeness in the 
body of the mother at the expense of her food and blood. 
And is constructed and endowed while a parasite with 
initiative becoming physical, mental and moral capacity, 
character and tendencies, transmitted in and inherited 
from these two microscopic bits of parental germinal 
matter, which was once but the common dead food the 
parents ate. All this concerns matter and material pro- 
cesses, and does not differ in principle from bi-sexual 
mammalian propagation of the lower animals. All 
the substance known to be involved, or need be affirmed, 
or can be proven or render us any information if affirm- 
ed, is the common matter of our food. And all we know 
about the origin of any individual, mind or body, from 
slave to monarch, from idiot to philosopher, must be told 
about two microscopic mites of matter separated from 
two parental differently sexed bodies and placed uuder 



374 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

very peculiar physical conditions for a few months, and 
a babe is born, a little copy of dam and sire. And all we 
know of its final destiny whether as babe or man is its 
death. And all else is guess, hope or despair. And this 
is true notwithstanding all theistie preaching, religious 
creeds, churches, theological institutions, and missionary 
societies. And the origin, becoming and career and 
death of man, is all as natural as that of any animal or 
vegetable, or that the river runs down stream, or the 
balloon ascends. How great and how different natural 
results from insignificant and unlike beginnings. 

Love expresses relationship, a tendency towards. 
And I think it may be maintained with a good deal of 
reason, that sex-love is the beginning of all animal and 
human fellow feeling. And it may be thought to find its 
antetype and prophecy in matter itself, as manifested in 
universal gravitation, specialized in chemistry, the mag- 
net, electrical and other affinities. And this tendency 
satisfied, its intense rejection is manifested in the law of 
repulsion. Action and reaction must be equal and op- 
posite. And all life, its properties and becoming's are 
derived from lifeless matter. The female egg and the 
male spermatozoon are microscopic cells as differently 
and surely sexed, as is the individual which these become 
The male cell, having the power of self-motion and 
specific discrimination, seeks, finds and interpenetrates 
the female cell, in the uterus, fallopian tube, or ovary. 
And a new individual mind and body, takes its origin. 
Hence, a man is nine months older than he is registered, 
for he begins to be at the moment of conjunction of egg 
and sperm. Love's union of opposite sexed cells is the 
root from which springs desire for marriage, parental 
and filial love, family endearments, tribal and national 
preference, social satisfaction, and the ethical sense. And 
of this latter sentiment there is at this time more evi- 
dently than ever before, a growing tendency towards 
universal human brotherhood, notwithstanding the great 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 375 

increase of navies and inventions of more and more aw- 
ful instruments of human slaughter. 

But even human brotherhood is too narrow. Our 
kinship evidently extends to all sentient nature, and 
our ethical sense and practice should be as extensive; 
•even to all that may feel pain by our acts should we 
act, or relief or sense of well being that is natural to 
them by our acts, where we ought to act. ' ' Detested sport 
that owes its pleasure to another's pain." Cowper. The 
wanton cruelty to domestic animal life, and by it wrong 
to our own better nature in feeling and seeking pleasure 
in killing birds for the theft of their plumage to decor- 
ate, or in the killing of animals for their furred skins to 
warm bodies that hold debauched consciences, or capture 
for confinement for our idle diversion, wild and free 
animal life, is, and ought to be felt, to belong to the 
same class of damnable sins as war for the robbery of 
territory. This is against equals, at least in kind, and 
sometimes has proved to be against superiors in the game 
of war. And those who first went forth to kill are killed, 
and their purpose defeated, which is but just. 

Discussion 74. Man is the greatest, most accom- 
plished and most successful of all beasts of prey, and the 
only animal that prays — at least in vocal language. No- 
tice that the cries and conduct of the higher living things 
in their human made afflictions, show that they love life 
as we do, and in their way cherish and defend it, and our 
vision of their distress and wounds, and their mourning 
for their young, seized and killed perhaps in their very 
presence, show not the least fellow-feeling in their behalf, 
or thought that man could do wrong to a dumb and de- 
fenseless animal. But this is not the full measure of his 
conscienceless barbarism, he breeds animals to appro- 
priate their bodies and their young for his own feast, or 
to fatten his bank-account and pile up millions. Nor has 
the so-called civilized world awakened to the pitiless sav- 
agery of this gainful blood-guilty calling, except it be 



376 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

the "heathen atheistic Buddhist," who neither breeds- 
nor kills, nor eats his more distant kin. But more amaz- 
ing. Although man is the only animal that prays in ar- 
ticulate sounds, cries of agony and sight of wounds 
should be a more prevailing prayer than words. But it 
moves not the butcher to relent, as human prayer does 
not a defender in the skies. And man is so much a beast 
of prey that he breeds the human kind and begets chil- 
dren and sells his own offspring into slavery to increase 
his wealth. This is the limit of possible human inhuman 
degradation and savagery. Or if there be a lower still, it 
has found no record. But for the slaughter of animal life, 
man claims the gift of divine right as kings do to rule. 
It is the sort of right that human might makes. And 
when the animal proves to be the stronger and is the kill- 
er and the eater, the divine right is with the animal, for 
the skies are as silent in the one case as in the other. Some 
of the most convincing arguments against the validity of 
the assumption of a fatherly creator of life, are the inevi- 
tableness of its pains, its diseases, accidents, birth de- 
formities and disabilities of body, feebleness or idiotcy of 
mind; the importance put upon the preservation of the 
species, by the fatherly creator, and his disregard and 
abandonment to almost universal antagonism the indi- 
vidual, the human equally with the lowest animals; and 
the fact that many animals live and are by their nature 
adapted to live only on the bodies or in the bodies of 
other living things ; and the final destiny of every living 
being after loving life so well is death and extinction, 
to the highest beings as well as the lowest, so far as any 
proof appears to the contrary, with historic humanity 
essaying the problem. All rectification, amelioration and 
easement of life's defects, diseases, burdens and miscar- 
riages, human and animal must be remedied and sup- 
plied, if at all, by human sympathy and human aid. And 
no divine objective fatherly interference can be expected 
or be critically shown ever to have occurred, either in be- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 377 

stowing life or ministering to it, by such proof as its di- 
rectness, strength and universality commands faith in, 
and not the weakness of a verbal authority that begs the 
favor of, and makes the chief element of virtue to exer- 
cise, the luck of which is damnatory. The statements of 
remote antiquity before man had sufficiently developed 
to distinguish between the subjective and objective, and 
to know what tested objective proof means, without 
which concerning all outward things and events, past, 
present, or to come, what a man merely thinks or believes 
are valueless as proof to another. And this is the source of 
Christian dogmatic faith, on which rests its theoretic 
ethics and its hopes. Theism and theistic religions are 
wholly subjective, emotional and assertive, and as impos- 
sible of objective verification as were the Gods of ancient 
Greece and Rome. But a present people are as confident 
that what they think and believe concerning their Gods 
is as true, and their emotions and their faith as divinely 
given, as those ancient peoples concerning their Gods, 
their faith and consolations. They all rest upon one com- 
mon ground, alleged miracle and faith in the truth of the 
allegation. But miracle has ceased, and the search-light 
of modern science can discover no objective evidence that 
it ever existed, or any Gods but home-made ones. For 
verifiable science and necessary affirmation neither postu- 
late Gods to begin with, nor call in their existence as 
proof of anything that is. 

The non-production on the part of a creator, or the 
prevention on the part of an Almighty, of life's antag- 
onisms, would be a much more convincing evidence of a 
divine fatherly creation and care than the failure of 
cure; and prevention and cure must be equally available 
to infinite resources, of what should not be created and 
might be, as could be created and should be. But there 
is a sad manifestation that what should not be done has 
been, and what might be prevented is not, from theistic 
fatherly pretentions of infinite power. 



378 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

The allegation that the world was the best that in- 
finite power, wisdom and goodness could produce, may be 
true from the view point of its being produced or cre- 
ated. But the evident fact of the whole animal and feel- 
ing part of it is far from being in a complete, self-satis- 
fied and lasting physical and moral state of well-being, 
shows that infinite power and infinite wisdom were un- 
able, or infinite goodness was unwilling to create life un- 
encumbered with antagonisms without and within itself ; 
or they have occurred by accident and without the will 
and consent of the creator ; or with his will and purpose 
that they should occur, planned and executed for his 
glory. Each of these suppositions is incompatible with 
the allegation. And the last, which appears to be nearly 
the orthodox Christian view, provokes the wonder of how 
a fatherly good creator could feel himself worthy of be- 
ing glorified; and especially if the glory would not be 
cancelled if enforced by threats of eternal punishment, 
by beings beset by antagonisms within their own natures 
and without, which finally destroy all loved objects and 
life itself that loves. 

Every form of life is at times antagonized by 
changes in inanimate nature called acts of providence, as 
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, floods, 
famine, etc., and by living nature against living nature. 
Notice the carnivorous adaptedness by internal nature 
and external means of many animals to capture, kill and 
eat other animals, the human to prey, and in turn to be 
preyed upon ; the annoyance and even death of the high- 
est order of life to minister by its life and well-being to 
the continuance and well being of the most insignificant 
life adapted by its nature and means to enter upon or 
within human bodies and to live nowhere else, with as 
effectual care of the divine father that their species shall 
be preserved as that the human shall be, even to the suf- 
fering and death of the human, whom we are divinely 
told that God created in his own likeness and made to 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 379 

partake of his own nature by giving to the dead body 
which he had formed by dead earth, life, by breath- 
ing into his own life. Besides there is in the na- ' 
ture of every human being an element that at times is 
at war with other elements. Notice the conflict of dislike 
and the need of labor. The love and needlessness of play. 
The wrong and self-interest of falsehood of both word' 
and deed. The desire of personally avenging an insult, an 
injury to person, family, friend, or property, which have 
led to wars of nations, and the moral and physical crime 
of so doing. The desire to gratify the sexual instinct, 
whose legitimacy is for the continuance of the species 
under the strict law of love and marriage, and otherwise 
its great individual and social wrong. 

The universal individual love of life and its well-be- 
ing is defeated by its universal ill-feeling and final death 
and extinction. This is inconsistent with the allegation 
of a divine fatherly creation of life and its endowment 
with intense love and satisfaction in it, and its equal ca- 
pacity for, and certainty of contrary inflictions, from 
unwillingness or inability to make good the promise in- 
trinsic in the nature of living beings. The antagonisms 
belie the allegation of a divine fatherly creator of life. 
And to Avrite, it is all to the glory of the creator; the 
glory is found to be, when interpreted by actual fact, to 
put promises into the nature of individual life, and break 
them in the experience of that life. And to aver that it 
has come about against the knowledge and will of the 
creator, or that an "enemy hath done this" is to declare 
the creator to be neither omniscient nor omnipotent. 

To illustrate how difficult it is to reconcile the an- 
tagonisms of life with the Christian dogmatic assertions 
concerning a creation and a fatherly creator, I quote a 
passage from "The Philosophy of the Christian Relig- 
ion" by Principal Fairbairn, page 94, "Philosophy has 
no harder or more obstinate questions than those connect- 
ed with the origin and the existence of evil. Indeed there 



380 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

is no problem that has so perplexed our finest spirits, re- 
ducing some to silent despair, rousing some to eloquent 
doubt, and forcing not a few into unbelief ; while a multi- 
tude no man can number, have saved faith by forcing 
their reason to sit dumb and blind before the mystery it 
could not penetrate or unravel. One of the most beauti- 
ful and pious spirits it has ever been my privilege to 
know, was a man who had been trained to the office of a 
preacher, who had distinguished himself as a scholar and 
as a thinker, and who had become the hope of his college, 
his professors, and his church. One day it fell to him to 
proclaim in public what he had tried to learn in the 
study and in the classroom ; but as he stood and faced the 
upturned eyes of men, there came such a vision of the 
evils that filled life and the impotence of the will that 
seemed to rule the world, as well as of the preacher and 
of the word he preached either to mend or end them, that 
he vowed unto the God in whose goodness he still believ- 
ed, that were he only allowed to escape Avith his reason 
from the appalling place, he would not again lift up his 
voice in a pulpit until he had a message better fitted for 
the supreme crises of a soul sojourning amid scenes so 
confused and perplexing. The message never came to 
him. ' ' 

Discussion 75. Here follow some of the chief points 
and conclusions involved in these discussions : The neces- 
sary primal assumption of eternal uncaused, therefore 
forever abiding, quantitative existence, with the inevita- 
ble presuppositions of the objective and subjective verities 
and validities of space and time ; then the consequential 
negative corollary of the creation of quantitative exist- 
ence. By quantitative or substantive existence, I mean a 
deposit in space of some real thing of which mass and mo- 
tions are essential attributes as' modes of existing. These 
modes of existing, as where and when, partake of the in- 
trinsic orders of space and time, rendering of necessity all 
things and all changes orderly, and can no more be dis- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 381 

orderly or really chaotic, than the orders of space and 
time. Then all things are intelligible. Existing suggests 
activity as well as passivity. Hence, substance, or the de- 
posit in space and time relations exists. Space and time 
are, or are passive being. Mass and motions carry with 
them locally, more or less of quantity, and velocity. This 
introduces forms with their definite internal positional 
and velocital constructions. To forms, so and so construct- 
ed, and definitely related to an environment so and so con- 
stituted which physical and chemical and many other 
classificatory differences serve to distinguish and to iden- 
tify all properties, qualities and functional becomings, or 
phenomena, known as inanimate, animate and psychic, 
belong, inhere or from which emerge. The complete and 
adequate reason and power, the how and the why, the all- 
sufficiency, are of necessity, lodged in the nature and 
modes of existing of the eternal uncaused quantitative 
existence. 

The most popular name for eternal existence is mat- 
ter. Partially defined it is that which is in space and 
takes the three dimensions of space, and cannot be de- 
stroyed nor more produced, and preserves its identity un- 
der all changes of form, property and function. "One 
and the same quantity of matter remains invariable in 
nature, without addition or diminution." Bacon. It has 
states of aggregation called solid, liquid and gaseous, 
corpuscular, atomic and molecular. Matter is objective 
to, and is considered by, thought. It is something exter- 
nally discovered by intuitive sense, and is the name of the 
thing discovered, and is independent of its discovery and 
of sense. Neither matter nor its shadow is found by intro- 
spection. Nor thought nor feeling is matter. But all that 
these words denote, connote, purport and import, come 
of matter in constructed positions and motions, and a 
cosmic environment. By cosmos is meant the universe, 
eternally, self -existing and of necessity orderly in all its 
changes as a deposit in space and time orders, and gov- 



382 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

erned by the force of its own interrelations, and not by 
extrinsic teleological causation. Cosmic appreciation we 
will say, and not cosmic emotion. By deposit is indicated 
merely that matter is in space and time relations, and 
therefore they constitute one eternal inseparable interre- 
lated system, and not that it Avas deposited there by a cre- 
ative and placing act. Philosophic metaphysical materi- 
alism, if you please, that interprets psychic phenomena 
and all other, as properties and functions of material in- 
terrelations. An all-embracing' cause must hold within it- 
self universal consequences, no matter what, or how re- 
mote, or how many intermediary agencies it passes 
through, no modifications can be received that were not 
derived from the all embracing cause. 

In some definitely constituted localities where there 
are special physical and some very exact chemical incor- 
porations of a few of the seventy or eighty atomic ele- 
ments of matter and nowhere else, and in no other com- 
binations of matter, the matter becomes animate, with as 
much consequential certainty as of some other physical 
and chemical incorporations, the matter becomes aqueous. 
And so throughout the ranges of physics and chemistry, 
how matter is topically arranged or constructed with re- 
gard to the parts of itself and their motions, with the en- 
vironment, determine what shall result whether a moun- 
tain or a man. And this is the all-commanding and vic- 
torious feature of materialism. It accounts for mind to 
the full extent and on the same principle that it accounts 
for water. And when intelligence shall solve the prob- 
lem of how and why two atomic elements in the form and 
with the properties of gas, chemically combined in exact 
quantities and numbers, should become water with new 
properties and functions, the properties of the gaseous 
state of matter lost, annihilated, except that which iden- 
tifies all kinds of matter as one matter, viz: weight or 
gravitative force, which ought to have convinced men 
long ago, that the different atoms were different con- 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 383 

structions of one matter, — it is likely that intelligence 
will be able to say how and ichy the same two atomic ele- 
ments in a certain constructed union suffiiced to give the 
water-form, properties and functions, to matter, together 
with some other atomic elements in a more complex con- 
structed union, should become a living, thinking, feeling, 
personality, as property and function of matter. 

Matter is the synthetical embodiment, the analytical 
undermost, "that in which, out of which and about 
Avhich, " issues all our guesses and wonders, and all the 
exact and verifiable sciences, except the mathematics, 
whose uncaused principles inhere in or are the verities of 
space and time, showing one eternal and universal sys- 
tem of things. Here is the sum total of all particulars, 
one universe or nature, beyond which or within which no 
existence can be discerned or thought-picture posited 
with the knowledge that it is beyond or within but other 
than any possible content of the universe. 

The causative antecedents of life have been pointed 
out. One chemical construction of the same kinds of 
atomic elements suffices for the manifestation of all kinds 
of life. The essence of life is awareness. It is a new 
evolved factor from the dead state of matter, as water is 
a new factor from the gaseous state of matter; which 
water-state could not have been until the dispersive heat 
motion of matter had so abated as to allow the gravitative 
affinity to bring the atomic elements within the reach of 
chemical affinity. Awareness is a nature. It takes an at- 
titude towards and against, an aptitude to become more 
and different than it is. It is a self, a will. It receives 
and rejects. It may become enlarged and differentiated 
to selfhood, — conscious of consciousness. Perhaps this is 
denominative of true personality. And what is it all but 
nature cognizing itself through its own instrumentalities 
and guidance. 

Sir Oliver Lodge holds that ' ' Life is something out- 
side the scheme of mechanics, outside the categories of 



384 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

matter and energy. ' ' This antagonizes all Ave know about 
life, and leaves life as an asserted x, in which intelli- 
gence, a function of life, can find no relation to a, b, and 
c, things known. For surely, if our knowledge stands for 
anything real and objective, it cannot ignore matter and 
energy, for thinking and feeling exhaust and so are the 
working and change of matter, as truly as muscular ex- 
ercise ; nor the scheme of mechanics, and know that life 
is without it, for life as we know and feel it, cannot get 
out of the realm of chemistry, and chemistry is nature's 
scheme of mechanics. What Sir Oliver wants is a guid- 
ance of the operations of nature to make them productive 
of definite results. And he wants to find it outside and 
other than nature, and not in it and of it. He thinks mind 
as an entity is that something that is competent to do the 
universal guidance, but argues from examples of it in 
the "scheme of mechanics," and within the "categories 
of matter and energy." If life, our life, extends in its 
terrestrial consequences beyond normal earthly recogni- 
tion, does it follow that it is outside the categories of mat- 
ter and energy ? Or if it extends beyond these ranges 
and our life here and now is wholly within those ranges, 
for he says frankly that we know nothing of life except 
as a function of terrestrial matter, how can our data and 
our logic carry us beyond and assure or give us any real 
clue to infer such extension ? Language has a wonderful 
capacity to suggest by opposing and qualifying word-ex- 
pressions much more than it can assure us that it is the 
objective name of. And here is a vast source of the sub- 
jective which has been erected into objective reality. Life 
has the aspect of coming and going, he says. True. So 
did the air come into the lungs of the just now born in- 
fant, and goes out to come in no more in the last expira- 
tion of the dying. But it was not life nor a living spir- 
itual entity, as it was for ages supposed to be, and helped 
greatly to initiate and forward theism. This spirit or soul 
coming into and going out of the body, corroborated by 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 385 

their dreams of seeing the dead alive, convinced our 
childish ancestors that death is not what it seems to be, 
and introduced the notion of immortality. (I wish it 
might be true to the betterment of mortality.) 

Speaking from the view point of all we know or have 
data for legitimate inference concerning life, notwith- 
standing its bare mention suggests, impossible! arising 
from the almost universal teaching to the contrary for 
millenniums, life in its human grades, is localized, liv- 
ing, conscious, feeling, thinking, willing and in some re- 
spects and to some degree, spontaneously moving matter, 
as property and function of its mechanical interrelations 
and cosmic bearings upon it. Life is evidently, though 
analogically inferred, enhanced by the absence of the 
knowledge of any other source, the effect of a combina- 
tion of atomic elements of matter, not one or all of which 
separated from one specific union gives any evidence of 
being alive. And this is harmonious with all chemical 
unions, that they have properties and serve functions 
that do not appertain to their constituents. And this is 
the force of the analogical inference. But life in its hu- 
man grades is a cause of supreme commanding import to 
all living things. But it is limited to the domain of mat- 
ter in itself and its effects. The most that life is, i. e.. liv- 
ing, willing matter can do in the way of guidance or con- 
trol of events, is to move the body it animates as instru- 
ment to shape or so to juxtapose or interrelate matter 
that the forces of nature may work the changes foreseen 
or learn what will follow. For with all human bungling 
attempts to find or devise a theistic accounting for uni- 
versal being and change, the rebound of failure sends us 
back upon one eternally constant object in its innumera- 
ble forms, forces, and functions forever ongoing in its 
own intrinsic power and guidance, where we must find 
life and all it stands for, not as primary cause but pro- 
duced and controlled effect. I cannot now think of any 
instance, in which thought, feeling or will has effected or 



386 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

can effect any objective or subjective results as guidance 
or control except through matter. There must be an ap- 
preciable something touching something, if there be any 
guidance or control effected, and the means are material. 
The voice, gesticulation, facial expression, attitude, writ- 
ing, a mark, signs of all kinds, electricity, and all modes 
of communication, placing of things in such and such in- 
terrelations, all have to do with matter. Not even spirits 
and their communications with mortals which Sir Oliver 
accepts as objectively true, but have a material medium. 
For if they are, they are somewhere, in the "Summer- 
land" or place whether named or unnamed, if they influ- 
ence the living here they do it through some material 
symbol or sign into which intelligence is put as it is put 
into language. Pity, love, hate, no emotion can affect any 
percipient except through some sign of it expressed by 
the agent. Telepathy defined as ' ' The direct communica- 
tion of one mind with another otherwise than in ordinary 
and recognized ways ; the supposed action of one mind on 
another at a distance. ' ' Prof. Hyslop says : ' ' The scien- 
tific world generally has not accepted it with any assur- 
ance as yet ; there is no knowledge of its laws and condi- 
tions. Suppose it has been proved to be a fact; the con- 
ditions under which it has any claim to scientific recogni- 
tion represent the agent as thinking of a fact transmitted 
at the time that the percipient obtains it." By what 
means, it may be asked ? The Professor says : It may be 
by some process of vibration set up in the ether between 
mind and mind. It may be by ethereal vibration set go- 
ing by a thinker and perceived and interpreted by a spir- 
it, and then communicated by a similar process through 
the ether to another living mind." There is here some 
abiding material or ethereal medium involved that mind 
may touch and influence mind, and this is all we contend 
for. The scientific inference is that if anything is trans- 
ferred from place to place it must be through some medi- 
um that connects the places. Hence the transmission of 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 387 

light and heat motions from the sun to the earth, and 
throughout the solar and universal sun-systems, needs a 
medium to be set in vibratory motions, and this has been 
assumed and called the Luminiferous Ether. And Elec- 
trical and Magnetic phenomena are best explained as 
some state of stress or action in the ether. And mathe- 
matical calculation has determined some of the properties 
and functions of the ether, if it exists and fulfills such a 
mission. And there is no reason so far as I know, that it 
may not be matter in some possible mode of its being and 
action. At all events it presents no indication of its being 
created. 

That human personality may be continued after its 
seeming extinction in death, in fulfillment of the almost 
universal desire for it, and there are some natural 
phenomenal indications of it, is by means rendered im- 
possible and hopeless in the scheme of the eternity 
of matter, and that nature is all embracing, all 
producing, and all conserving, in its uncreated be- 
ing and unbestowed powers and functions. But 
rather the ground of hope is rendered more reason- 
ably secure on the necessary averment of eternal uncre- 
ated existence, and that existence within our sense and in- 
tellectual purview and determines our nature to be that 
which is, has always been, and must forever continue, if 
individual life is within the scope of nature to indefinite- 
ly or forever prolong as it has commenced it. And Her- 
bert Spencer has given us a note on this subject. He says : 
"Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were 
there no changes in the environment but such as the or- 
ganism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never 
to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there 
would be eternal life and eternal knowledge." On the 
scheme of necessary eternal matter, with all possibi?ities 
and certainties involved in it to be evolved from it and by 
it, rests our reasonable hope of an indefinite continuance 
of life, rather than on a fictitious theistic scheme of hu- 



388 THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 

man imagination and construction, and on nothing that 
is fundamentally known, but on what has been gnessed, 
and thought-constructed, without the knowledge or nec- 
essary averment of an underlying objective reality cor- 
responding to the thought-construction. Nature has with- 
in itself the all sufficiency to evolve the property of life 
from the non-living, and has accomplished it, as analog- 
ical reasoning from the whole field of chemistry declares. 
And this is a philosophical necessity also as being involv- 
ed in the averment of universal Evolution, notwithstand- 
ing the alleged final settlement of the question and the 
averred motto : ' ' All life from life, ' ' from the failure of 
life appearing as the result of some attempts to produce 
it from dead matter. It is most evident that life was not 
first evoked in the ways of the human methods hitherto 
essayed to evolve it. And this is all that the unsuccessful 
attempts of Bastian, Tyndall, Pasteur and others, deter- 
mine. Nature has prolonged the individual life in the 
vegetal kingdom perhaps 1,000 years, and the individual 
human life 100 years and more, and human longevity is 
increasing by successful human methods both to avoid 
and to render nugatory what kills. And all that would 
be needful to prolong individual life indefinitely or for- 
ever, would be such an adjustment of personalized living* 
matter and the environment, that should not be killed by 
the environment, nor by any failure of the living matter, 
the' matter existing eternally, and the only question is to 
continue its property of life. By life is meant all it 
stands for in its conscious development. What lies with- 
in the store-house of eternal, universal self -ongoing, and 
self-evolving nature, is not known to any knower. 

All that I have posited in a necessarily assumed 
eternal, uncreated existence, called nature or the uni- 
verse, of which all our knowledge concerns, must be pos- 
ited and much more, even the creation of the universe, as 
the alternative, in a gratuitously assumed creator, of 
whom we know nothing whatever. For eternal uncreated 



THE ETERNITY OF MATTER 389 

existence is the primal and necessary affirmation. And 
not creation or creator of existence. 

And having existence as first and necessary postu- 
late, there can be no need to assume the creation or cre- 
ator of existence. Neither can either be proven. Nor can 
the allegation of either be any explanation of any exist- 
ence or phenomena observed in nature. For something 
partially recognized cannot be better known by present- 
ing a reason for it entirety unknown. And he who offers 
the word God as an explanation of anything, has said for 
the explanation, I do not know. To take the scientific 
pathway, all life is wholly the evolved property and 
function of matter. 



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